An appeal by convicted Chinese spy Zhou Hongxu (周泓旭) against the Taiwan High Court extending his detention was yesterday rejected by the Supreme Court.
Zhou, 30, was on Sept. 15 last year given a 14-month sentence by the Taipei District Court for violating the National Security Act (國家安全法) after being found guilty of attempting to develop spy networks in Taiwan.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official, who Zhou attempted to bribe in exchange for classified information, reported his actions to the authorities, leading to his arrest and indictment in March last year.
Both Zhou and the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office appealed the ruling.
Zhou last year appealed for bail, but the Taiwan High Court in December last year decided to extend his detention by two more months until Feb. 27 this year, prompting Zhou to appeal to the Supreme Court.
With the Supreme Court’s rejection, Zhou, who has been detained since March 10 last year, has exhausted his appeals.
Zhou in 2012 moved to Taiwan to enroll in a National Chengchi University MBA program. He returned to China in September 2016, before traveling back to Taiwan in February last year, ostensibly as a management investor.
An investigation into several members of the pro-unification New Party, who are suspected of colluding with Zhou to establish spy networks for China, is still being prepared by the Taiwan High Court.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
RSS