Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. says it has fired Yi Bin Zhu, the technical engineer accused of spying on Fujitsu Network Communications Inc. (FNC) and other companies during the Supercomm tradeshow.

Huawei spokesman Richard Li, in an email to Light Reading, confirmed that Zhu had been fired. He declined to make any further comment on the matter.

Zhu had been caught after-hours taking photographs of equipment displayed at FNC's Supercomm booth, as Light Reading first reported on June 24. When caught, Zhu was wearing a name badge with a cleverly altered company name: Weihua. (See Huawei in Spying Flap and Will Spying Charges Hurt Huawei?.)

Show security confiscated several items from Zhu, including Memory Sticks from his digital camera, and a notebook that was packed with hand-drawn diagrams and other data, probably of equipment he'd looked at, according to sources who witnessed the incident.

In June, Zhu spoke to Light Reading, through an interpreter. At the time, he admitted to taking pictures of equipment displayed at FNC's Supercomm booth. An FNC spokesman said Zhu was found taking pictures of a piece of equipment with its cover removed, but Zhu denied having taken circuit boards out of boxes to photograph them.

FNC says it has turned the matter over to the FBI.

Li's email to Light Reading says that Zhu was fired at the end of July. However, Business Week, in its August 9 issue, reported that Zhu was still working at Huawei, but with reduced pay.

— Phil Harvey, News Editor, and Peter Heywood, Founding Editor, Light Reading