Belgium's Federal Prosecutor's Office said on Saturday that a Canadian citizen working as an intern at the SupremeHeadquarters Allied Powers Europe in Mons has been placed under an arrest warrant on suspicion of espionage on behalf of a third country and of belonging to a criminal organisation. According to the prosecutor, "she is suspected of spying on behalf of a third country and of being a member of a criminal organisation."

The office said she had recently begun the internship and had come to the attention of SHAPE's own security services, which referred the matter to Belgium's General Intelligence and Security Service, the military intelligence agency. Federal judicial police in Charleroi searched her home and her workplace on Thursday, and an investigating judge placed her under an arrest warrant on Friday. The investigating chamber is due to decide next week whether to confirm it. Her name is being withheld from the public at this time.

Ann Lukowiak of the federal prosecutor's office told VRT that the behaviour flagged by SHAPE could involve searches within computer systems or looking through files, tasks that fell outside her remit. That was offered as an illustration of what the security services look for rather than an account of what she is alleged to have done, and the firmer version circulating in Belgian media, that she sought out sensitive information, does not come from the prosecutor. The office has not said which country she is alleged to have worked for, what she is supposed to have accessed or passed on, what the criminal organisation is meant to be, over what period, or what was found or seized in the searches.

Public Safety Canada has confirmed it is aware of the arrest of a Canadian citizen employed by NATO at SHAPE and says the matter relates to an ongoing criminal investigation, declining to comment on specifics. A SHAPE spokesman says the headquarters is cooperating fully with Belgian authorities, will not address the allegations, and that there is no indication operational readiness or command and control arrangements were affected.

The prosecutor did describe her as a Canadian national of Chinese origin. It has not said which third country she is alleged to have served, and those are two separate claims, however much coverage this weekend has treated the first as an answer to the second. We will update the record when the prosecutor does, and not on the strength of the inference in the meantime.