A Central Chinese court on Saturday sentenced a senior journalist to ten years in jail for leaking top state secrets to foreign publications.

Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment.

The ruling was handed down by the Intermediate People's Court of Changsha City, capital of central China's Hunan Province, Xinhua news agency reported.

Shi, 37, who was employed by the Contemporary Business News published in Changsha, from February 11, 2004 to April 22, 2004, was also deprived of his political rights for two years.

The court was told that the main contents of a certain important document were discussed at one internal meeting of the editorial board of the newspaper last April.

Shi, who was then head of the central desk with the news centre of the newspaper, attended the internal meeting and took notes. On the same day, Shi sent the main contents of the document aboard via e-mail and had it published in a foreign publication.

The e-mail was picked repeatedly by several overseas Internet portals, the report said.

The National Administration for the Protection of State Secrets later certified the contents leaked to overseas by Shi as 'top state secrets ', the report said.