An opposition lawmaker expressed doubts yesterday about the evidence used to secure the conviction of an army major found guilty of leaking defense information to a newspaper.
Last week, the military high court gave a nine-year sentence to Major Liu Chih-chung (
But People First Party lawmaker and former TV journalist Diane Lee (李慶安) yesterday questioned the validity of the evidence in the case, saying it was doubtful the information was indeed classified as the military maintains.
Lee posed the question yesterday at a press conference at the Legislative Yuan.
Also attending were two journalism scholars and an independent news commentator.
Liu was sentenced to eight years in prison for leaking military secrets to the media and handed another 18 months for attempting to aid Hung with the information he provided.
The information Liu provided concerned the sighting of three Chinese military vessels around 55km off Taiwan's northeast coast on May 18 last year.
Liu also informed the correspondent of an attack on the same night on a radar station in Taipei's suburban Linkou district by unknown persons.
The information was found to have been the basis of a report written by Hung and published in Power News on May 19 of last year.
The military high court convicted Liu on the evidence of the news report and on information provided by Liu himself.
But Lee yesterday questioned the adequacy of the evidence -- especially since the news report had been denied by the Ministry of National Defense.
Citing a news release distributed by the ministry on May 19 last year, Lee said that the ministry denied the reported sighting of the three Chinese military vessels.
"If the ministry denied there was ever such an incident, how could the military high court be justified in finding Liu guilty of leaking military secrets?" Lee said.
In response, the ministry said it had never denied that three Chinese military vessels were spotted on the seas off Suao on May 18 last year.
"We just denied the distance that the news report said the Chinese vessels were from the coast," a ministry spokesman said.
"We cannot make public the real distance between the ships and the coast because that would expose the extent of our surveillance capabilities against sea targets."
The defense ministry declined to comment further on the issue, saying they preferred to leave the case to be decided by the judges who will preside over Lee's appeal.
Also at the press conference yesterday, independent news commentator Hu Chung-hsing (
"The military is using its own logic in the handling of the Liu case," Hu said.
"They can think only in terms of the logic they are familiar with. We can understand it. But in the Liu case, the military seems to have moved against public opinion."
Hu also said that he hopes the military will attempt to mend its now-soured relations with the nation's media in the aftermath of the Liu case.
"National security and freedom of speech should be maintained simultaneously," he said.
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