Huawei sacked an executive arrested in Poland for allegedly spying for a Chinese secret service agency, as the vendor attempts to distance itself from the incident.

The company said in a statement it had decided to terminate the employment of Wang Weijing, who served as its sales director in Poland, after he was charged and detained for allegedly conducting high level espionage on behalf of a Chinese spy agency.

Huawei said his alleged actions “have no relation to the company” and it took the decision because “the incident has brought Huawei into disrepute”.

Along with Wang, Polish authorities also detained the former head of IT security at the country’s Internal Security Agency, as part of the same investigation.

Both were arrested on allegations of spying after security services searched the Polish offices of Huawei and operator Orange, as well as Poland’s Agency for Electronic Communications.

Stanislaw Zaryn, a representative of Poland’s Ministry for Special Services, told Financial Times the investigation was not aimed at Huawei, but rather at the two individuals.

However, it appears Huawei decided to act quickly in the face of global scrutiny of its practices. The company has already been banned from supplying telecoms infrastructure for 5G build-outs in the US, Australia and New Zealand due to national security concerns, while Japanese operators have also said they will not use the company.

The UK and Germany are also reportedly considering similar bans.

Poland is an important market for Huawei and the company has been working with T-Mobile Polska and Orange Polska on 5G pilots.

Huawei also plans to build a new science and technology centre in capital city Warsaw.