The Taiwan High Court gave a 22 month sentence yesterday to Yang Kuang-nan (
Yang, who was repatriated to Taiwan from Macau in December last year, was found guilty for his membership in a criminal gang notorious for its acts of violence.
The Four Seas Gang is one of the largest organized crime groups in Taiwan. Yang fled to China several years ago and is a suspect in several crimes in Taiwan ranging from bid-rigging to murder.
The Taoyuan District Court had convicted him and sentenced Yang to two years for joining a criminal gang -- a Criminal Code offense punishable by a maximum of three years in prison.
But the Taiwan High Court vacated the district court decision yesterday. Instead, the court opted to punish Yang under the Organized Crime Prevention Act, which allows for a sentence of up to five years in prison.
In the end, the High Court gave Yang a more lenient sentence than the district court on the grounds that Yang had not been able to control operations of the Four Seas Gang after he fled.
Yang is suspected of involvement in two unsolved murders. There's the 1996 slaying of the former head of the Four Seas Gang, Chen Yung-ho (陳永和), who was shot dead in a Taipei restaurant, and the 1998 killing of Huang Nai-hsuan (
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