The High Court has overturned a previous acquittal of former air force officer Lou Wen-ching (樓文卿) in a Chinese spying case. Lou was convicted for passing military secrets to China and was handed a 17-year prison sentence and would be deprived of his civil rights for 10 years. The decision was made at a second trial yesterday, following an acquittal in September 2020.
Former air force officers — colonel Ko Chi-hsien (葛季賢) and lieutenant colonel Lou Wen-ching (樓文卿) — were recruited by spy networks set up by Chinese intelligence officer Zhen Xiaojiang (鎮小江), who enticed them with financial rewards, investigators said.
Investigators presented evidence of Lou and Ko conducting espionage activities and obtaining classified materials, which they passed to Zhen, who had recruited a number of military officers to develop a spy network.
Photo: Taipei Times file
The case also embroiled retired army major general Hsu Nai-chuan (許乃權).
The High Court previously cited insufficient evidence and inconsistencies in testimonies in its decision to acquit Lou and Ko, but the prosecution appealed and the case was returned to the court for a retrial.
After another round of investigations, the judges ruled there was sufficient evidence that Lou stole classified military materials from the air force units and passed it to China. Lou was found guilty of contravening Article 17 of the Criminal Code of the Armed Forces (陸海空軍刑法) for “committing an act of espionage for an enemy.”
The court handed Lou a 17-year prison sentence, which is considered a severe penalty, as most spying case convictions in the past decade usually only resulted in three to four-year prison sentences. Lou was also ordered to forfeit US$4,000 and an additional NT$50,000 of criminal proceeds.
Meanwhile, the court upheld the acquittal for Ko, citing insufficient evidence.
The ruling for both defendants can still be appealed.
Zhen, a retired Chinese People’s Liberation Army captain, was arrested in 2014.
Investigators said he had operated the largest Chinese spy network in Taiwan in recent decades.
He offered up to US$10,000 for top secret information on Taiwan’s Leshan Radar Station in Hsinchu County, deployment plans for military drills and pilot training for French-made Mirage 2000 jet fighters.
Successive court rulings have upheld the guilty verdicts on Zhen and Hsu, convicting them of contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法).
Zhen in 2016 received a four-year prison term and Hsu received a two-year and 10-month sentence.
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