Britain's GCHQ spy agency director to step down later this year

LONDON – The director of Britain’s GCHQ intelligence agency, Jeremy Fleming, will step down at the end of his tenure later this year, the agency said on Thursday.

Fleming, who has been director of GCHQ since April 2017, will continue to lead and oversee work at the agency until the summer, GCHQ said in a statement.

“In line with normal practice, there will be an internal civil service competition to identify a successor,” it added.

In October, Fleming used a speech to warn China was using its financial and scientific muscle to manipulate technologies in a manner that risked global security.

(This story has been refiled to fix a typo in ‘warn’ in the final paragraph)