US Justice Department attorneys prosecuting former deputy assistant secretary of state Donald Keyser over his alleged failure to report a trip to Taiwan last Sep-tember have won a one-month extension in a federal court of the time they have to formally charge Keyser with a crime.
The delay came to light on Wednesday, when a court appearance scheduled for Keyser on that day was cancelled, with no new date put on the schedule.
It turned out that the court had agreed to the delay on Oct. 2 in response to a joint motion filed by the US government prosecutors and Keyser's lawyer.
The government prosecutors won the delay because of the large number of documents they say they have to go through before formally charging Keyser.
"This is a complex case involving a large quantity of documents and computer evidence seized during the execution of a search warrant, some of which has not been analysed," the joint motion said.
"Counsel for the United States and the defendant have discussed this case, and believe that an extension of the time period within which an indictment must be filed would be in the best interest of justice," the joint motion said.
Keyser was arrested on Sept. 15 after a lunchtime meeting at a Washington-area restaurant with two Taiwanese intelligence offi-cers attached to the Taipei Eco-nomic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in Washington, Lieutenant General Huang Kuang-hsun (
Both are agents of the National Security Bureau. Huang is believed to be TECRO's intelligence chief.
Keyser was accused of failing to report to his superiors a three-day trip to Taiwan last year.
But the complaint compiled by an FBI agent also cited several meetings Keyser had with Huang and Chen since May this year, at some of which Keyser was seen handing documents to the pair.
In response to the joint motions, US District Judge Claude Hilton of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, in Alexandria, Virginia, granted the prosecutors until Nov. 12 to file an indictment.
The deadline had been today.
Keyser, who retired from his State Department job in July, is free on a US$500,000 bond.
The accusation stemmed from Keyser's alleged failure to report the September trip on an annual form he completed May 1, in which he was required to list all foreign trips of the previous year.
The form was required in order to him to retain his Top Secret security clearance.
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