Retired naval officer gets 15 years for spying for China
Central News Agency
2014-12-15 06:46 PM
Taipei, Dec. 15 (CNA) Taiwan's Supreme Court upheld a lower court verdict on Monday and sentenced a retired Taiwanese naval officer to 15 years in jail for spying for China. The court rejected the appeal filed by retired Commander Chang Chih-hsin against a Kaohsiung High Court ruling that found him guilty of assisting Chinese spies with espionage activities.
The Supreme Court's ruling was final, meaning that Chang, a former chief officer in charge of political warfare at the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography (METOC) Office from November 2008 to May 2012, cannot appeal the verdict and now faces a jail term.
The Supreme Court said it upheld the high court's sentence of 15 years in prison rather than increase it because Chang's conduct did not cause substantial damage to the country's national security. According to Monday's ruling, Chang was found to have taken money from Chinese intelligence agents in 2010 in exchange for helping Beijing recruit officers and pry military secrets from the Taiwan side.
He was arrested in November 2012 on charges of leaking secrets and taking bribes. Before then, prosecutors and investigators in charge of the case secured evidence showing he had close contacts with Chinese military officers during tours to Fuzhou and Xiamen in southern China after his retirement in May 2012.
As a military officer, Chang was well aware that Taiwan remains in a military standoff against China, which is defined as an "enemy" in Taiwan's Criminal Code of the Armed Forces, the court said.
Aware of the ban against spying for the enemy, Chang still signed up to join the Communist Party of China in August 2011, the same year he invited several active Taiwanese military officers on trips to Southeastern Asian countries including Malaysia to make contact with Chinese intelligence personnel. The court harshly reprimanded Chang for abandoning the core values of loyalty and trust that a military officer should uphold and damaging military virtue.
(By Liu Shih-yi and Elizabeth Hsu)
