A Chinese-born engineer has been sentenced to twenty-four years in prison for conspiring to give American defense secrets to Beijing.The engineer,Chi Mak worked for an American company with navy contracts in California.He was convicted of trying to hand over intelligence about silent submarines. Sarah Morris reports from Washington.

"The U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney who sentenced him and fined him 50,000 dollars,said the length of the sentence was intended to provide a strong deterrent to China,not to send its agents to the U.S. to steal American military secrets.Chi Mak was found guilty of attempting to send sensitive material to China and acting as a foreign agent without notifying the U.S. government.