The military is intensifying countermeasures to prevent Chinese infiltration of its ranks and stepping up evidence-gathering in espionage cases to facilitate prosecution, Executive Yuan officials said at a plenary session at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday.
That was in response to criticism by Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) that prison sentences meted out in national security law cases were too lenient.
Other countries hand out stiff sentences of 30 years to life in prison for members of the armed forces who spy on their country for a hostile power, Liu said.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
Citing data from the Ministry of Justice, Liu said that the average sentence handed out to people convicted of betraying secrets to Beijing was 6.18 months in prison, which is lax in light of the repeated warnings Taiwan has received from its allies about communist infiltration.
Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) acknowledged that some unidentified military personnel who have been compromised by China might still be serving in security-sensitive positions in the armed forces.
About one-third of service members implicated in leaking national security secrets to China were on active duty, while the remainder were retirees, he said.
Military personnel must follow the law regardless of their service status and former service members who spy for China would still be held accountable, Chiu added.
Although the ministry cannot comment on the handling of espionage cases by the judicial system, the military has stepped up efforts to raise troop awareness against Beijing-directed espionage and is conducting investigations to gather potential evidence for prosecution, he said.
The Ministry of Justice agrees with the assessment that judges are handing down overly lenient sentences for national security breaches, but sentencing is a prerogative of the court, Minister of Justice Tsai Ching-hsiang (蔡清祥) said.
Should prosecutors have cause to appeal a sentence, they will pursue it to the full extent of the law, he added.
The justice ministry is collaborating with the defense ministry to educate prosecutors on the crucial importance of prosecuting espionage cases and plans to appoint special prosecutors to try espionage cases, he said.
Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) said the justice ministry has been instructed to improve law enforcement’s ability to obtain evidence that can help clinch heavier penalties in cases involving Beijing-directed espionage.
Prosecutors should be encouraged to appeal verdicts that do not fit the crime, he said.
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