British corporate investigator, wife on trial in China

A British corporate investigator and his American wife, who were once hired by scandal-hit pharmaceutical giant GSK in China, went on trial today on charges of illegally obtaining private information of Chinese nationals, becoming the first foreigners to be prosecuted for breaching the country's privacy law.
Chinese prosecutors alleged that 58-year-old Peter Humphrey and his 61-year-old wife Yu Yingzeng "illegally trafficked a huge amount of personal information on Chinese citizens" and they obtained this details by secret photography, infiltration or tailing after "someone".
Humphrey and his wife were tried by the First Intermediate People's Court Shanghai, in what the court termed as an "open trial" under which it released information periodically about the proceedings through posts in its microblog.

The court in the microblog account claimed that Humphrey did not generally dispute the accusations.
"Generally speaking...I don't dispute (the prosecutor's indictment)," the official microblog quoted Humphrey, a former journalist as telling the court.
Ahead of the trial, Humphrey and his wife had been held at a detention centre in Shanghai.

Former journalist Humphrey, who founded an investigative firm ChinaWhys, was last year hired to investigate the source of a sex tape of the China boss of pharmaceutical giant GlaxoKlineSmith (GSK), shortly before the British firm became embroiled in bribery allegations.
The case unravelled in January 2013 with an email sent to GSK's London-based CEO Andrew Witty containing a sex tape of GSK China's general manager Mark Reilly and his girlfriend.

Along with the tape came allegations that GSK bribed Chinese doctors. The bribery allegations were shared with Chinese authorities in anonymous emails, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.
Chinese authorities are investigating GSK over the allegations. The authorities have not officially connected the trial to the graft probe, but Humphrey has linked the investigation with his own arrest.
The email accused Reilly of being behind systematic corruption in the company's China operation. GSK for its part said it found evidence of wrongdoing.