A former Presidential Office official has been sentenced to two years in prison by the Taiwan High Court for leaking state secrets to China.
Wang Ren-bing (王仁炳) was found guilty on Friday of passing confidential information about President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) May 2008 inauguration to Chinese intelligence operatives.
Chen Pin-jen (陳品仁), a former aide of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Liao Kuo-tung (廖國棟), was sentenced to eight months in prison for delivering the confidential information Wang gave him to China.
The two men were found guilty of violating the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), but can still appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court, the high court said.
The ruling said Wang copied confidential documents from 2004 to 2008 when he worked under then-Presidential Office deputy secretaries-general Chen Che-nan (陳哲男), Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) and Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍), when then-Democratic Progressive Party president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was in power.
Wang and Chen Pin-jen handed over seven confidential documents, including notes from a meeting between Chen Shui-bian and a US official, the ruling said.
Chen Pin-jen also collected information on Taiwan’s UN bids, lists of Taiwanese athletes at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and information on Taiwanese legislators visiting China, the ruling added.
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