Samsung's Chinese employee indicted over technology leak

   A Chinese employee of South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. has been indicted for trying to leak the company's core technology and business secrets, prosecutors said Sunday.

   The 40-year-old woman, who had worked as a senior researcher for a home appliance department of the company since 2007, is suspected of attempting to hand over the company's classified documents regarding noise reduction technology for home appliances and trade secrets to a leading Chinese home-appliance maker between late March and early this month.

   The woman, who was not identified, printed out the confidential data from the company's computerized database while her co-workers were out of the office, photographed it and stored the image files on her personal laptop, according to prosecutors.

   She was recently offered a job from the Chinese company after Samsung refused to renew her contract, they said.

   The prosecution, however, said there was no evidence showing the data had been leaked to the Chinese firm.

   She was arrested on April 8 when the prosecution, tipped off from an insider of the research institute, raided her home and office in Suwon, a city just south of Seoul.

   During the raid, she attempted to destroy evidence by throwing her laptop out of her 16th floor apartment window, but she was unsuccessful, prosecutors said.