The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday reviewed data from the Ministry of Justice’s Bureau of Investigation (MJIB) concerning allegations that former Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) deputy minister Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) has been acting as a spy. The prosecutors agreed to take charge of an investigation of the matter, despite the same data being turned down by the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office on Thursday.
Taipei District Prosecutors started investigations into the case yesterday.
According to sources, Chang has been barred from leaving the country and prosecutors will subpoena him for questioning soon.
Photo: Chen Wei-tzum Taipei Times
The difference between the High Prosecutors’ Office prosecuting the case and the District Prosecutors’ Office prosecuting the case is criminal activity related to national security offenses if taken by the former, and meaning the alleged offense would exclude national security offenses if taken by the latter.
Chang has recently been in the spotlight over allegations that he had leaked sensitive information to Chinese officials.
According to sources, Chang had allegedly leaked five pieces of information on cross-strait economics and trade, as well as on the cross-strait trade services agreement.
The Mainland Affairs Council alleged that Chang divulged “confidential” and “secret” information.
Under the National Security Information Protection Act (國家安全機密保護法), restricted information is given three designations: top secret, secret and confidential.
The source also said Chang was suspected of having leaked information about Executive Yuan meetings, which may give a court cause to call Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) to testify.
The prosecutors’ office said it suspected Chang had leaked the information by telling his alleged Chinese contact personally or by passing the contact notes, allowing the Chinese government to learn what Taiwan had brought to the negotiation table and where it would falter.
The bureau’s information showed Chang is suspected of conducting treasonous actions, which would usually place his alleged actions under the jurisdiction of the High Prosecutors’ Office, the District Prosecutors’ Office said.
However, it added that the High Prosecutors’ Office had declined to head the investigation, citing a lack of evidence that the information Chang allegedly leaked was affiliated with national security.
The High Prosecutors’ Office also said that if Chang is charged with dereliction of duty concerning foreign affairs, such charges are only applicable to foreign governments, while the government does not consider relations across the Taiwan Strait to be between nations, based on its “one China” policy.
Separately, lawyer Lin Chun-feng (林俊峰) said that the reason offenses infringing on external security of the nation were placed under the jurisdiction of the High Prosecutors’ Office was that national security matters merited immediate legal attention.
The High Prosecutors’ Office oversees all second trials, which means that once it headed the investigation and oversaw the indictment, the case would go straight through the second and third trials, Lin said.
The nation may have crumbled to the ground by the time the arduous legal processes from initial trial to the third trial are finished with, Lin said.
Additional reporting by CNA
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS