A U.S. citizen has been sentenced to two years and eight months in prison in Germany for offering to hand over sensitive U.S. military information to a Chinese intelligence service.

The Higher Regional Court in the western German city of Koblenz handed down the sentence on Feb. 11 against the defendant—identified only as Martin D. under German privacy law—for espionage, according to a news release.

The trial against Martin D. started in November last year, when he was accused of repeatedly offering to pass on sensitive U.S. military information to a Chinese intelligence service while working as a civilian employee of a U.S. military base in Germany, according to the court.

The defendant was arrested in Frankfurt in November 2024 and indicted in August last year.

From 2017 to spring 2023, the defendant was employed by a civilian contractor working for the U.S. Department of Defense, now called the U.S. Department of War, according to Germany’s Federal Public Prosecutor General. By 2020, the defendant had been assigned to the U.S. military base in Germany.

The court added that the verdict is not legally binding yet, since the representatives of the Office of the Federal Public Prosecutor General have indicated that an appeal may be filed, even though the defendant has waived his right to appeal.

According to a Congressional Research Service report, about 35,000 active-duty U.S. service members were permanently stationed in Germany as of March 2024, where the United States maintains several Army and Air Force bases.

The court determined that Martin D. was motivated by a falling out with his employer, Germany’s national newspaper Die Welt reported on Feb. 11. He was dismissed in 2023 after reporting what he described as injustices against the U.S. military to both his employer and U.S. authorities, and failing to see improvement, according to the outlet.

Upset that his concerns were not addressed, the man later contacted Chinese authorities to offer information, according to the outlet.

During the trial, it emerged that the information he had sought to share was not subject to special confidentiality requirements and that the Chinese authorities showed little interest, the outlet reported.

The judges at the trial characterized the defendant’s actions as “amateurish“ and his plans as ”half-baked,” not befitting a classic secret agent, according to Die Welt.

The defendant’s lawyer, Sabrina Gies-Meier, told The Epoch Times in an email on Feb. 12 that she hoped that the judges “will suspend the remainder of the sentence on probation” in terms of the enforcement of the judgment.

“The court’s judgment, measured against the significantly higher sentence requested by the Federal Public Prosecutor, turned out very much in his favor,” Gies-Meier stated.

“Considering his character and motivation, as well as the fact that the criminal offense is fulfilled merely by offering ‘information’ to a foreign power—even without possessing such ‘information’—release from custody and probation would be justified.”

Gies-Meier expressed hope that there would be no need to extradite her client to face charges in the United States.

“We hope that criminal prosecution by the United States will not take place and that no extradition request will be filed by [the] U.S.,” Gies-Meier stated. “In our view, an extradition and prosecution in the United States would be disproportionate and unlawful.”

In September last year, a German court sentenced a former Chinese aide to German politician Maximilian Krah to four years and nine months in prison for spying for China, in what German federal prosecutor Stephan Morweiser called the “most serious case of Chinese espionage” uncovered in the country to date.