New Delhi, Oct. 15 -- Indian-origin Ashley Tellis, 64, a US foreign policy expert with access to top-secret information, has been arrested after accusations of illegally possessing classified national defence documents and reportedly meeting multiple times with Chinese government officials, according to court documents seen by Hindustan Times.

On 13 October, Ashley Tellis was formally charged in a Virginia district court with breaching federal laws related to the retention of national defence information, as per a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) criminal complaint and affidavit.

During a court-approved search on 11 October, federal investigators discovered over 1,000 pages of documents labelled 'top secret' or 'secret' at Ashley T...