The State Council Information Office told Ching Cheong's employer, the Straits Times newspaper in Singapore, that his detention without trial has been extended twice, said the source requesting anonymity.

Ching was formally arrested on August 5, four months after he was first detained. Under normal circumstances, his case should have been handed over to prosecutors within two months.

The State Council, however, issued a verbal statement to the Straits Times Friday that his detention was extended by a month on October 6 and another two months on November 6.

Ching, 55, a Hong Kong citizen working as the Straits Times' chief China correspondent, was arrested in April in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. He has been held under house arrest in Beijing.

China's official Xinhua news agency had said Ching set up "a number of channels for espionage" in Hong Kong and mainland China for Taiwanese intelligence between early 2000 and March 2005.

Xinhua also said Ching obtained "a great deal of information" on China's political, economic and particularly military affairs.

It accused him of receiving hundreds of thousands of US dollars from Taiwan for his espionage activities, and repeated a Chinese assertion that Ching had confessed.

His wife Mary Lau has said she believed Ching's arrest was connected to his attempts to acquire a publication about late Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang, who opposed the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

Other Hong Kong media reports have said Ching served as an analyst for the Chinese government on Taiwan, but that Chinese officials were upset over information he allegedly shared with Taiwanese politicians.

The arrest has been condemned by international press freedom groups.

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