The Ministry of National Defense is appealing a January ruling by the Taipei District Court that ordered the ministry to pay the family of late intelligence officer Yen Hsien-chun (閻獻君) for interest owed on missed compensation totaling NT$1.7 million (US$51,593).
In 1956, then-19-year-old Yen was dispatched to Hong Kong by her superiors in the Military Intelligence Bureau, infiltrating China to conduct covert missions against its government.
According to her brother Yen Chung-nan (閻崇楠), Yen Hsien-chun was recruited the previous year, when her family was evacuated to Taiwan from the Dachen Islands (大陳群島) off the coast of China’s Zhejiang Province.
Photo: Chang Wen-chuan, Taipei Times
During the course of her covert mission, her family received sporadic communications from her, he said, adding that communication ended sometime in the 1960s, at which time the ministry terminated payment of her salary to the family.
For the next 20 years, the family petitioned the ministry to shed light on his sister’s whereabouts or current status, to no avail, he said.
The ministry finally responded in 1986, saying that Yen Hsien-chun was on active deployment under the bureau with the rank of captain and issued the family her military papers, military household ration certificates and resumed her payment of her salary, Yen Chun-nan said.
However, in 1998 the ministry suddenly informed the Yen family that the previous information was erroneous, and that Yen Hsien-chun was missing since May 19, 1987, and presumed killed in action, he said, adding that their mother moved to sue the ministry, because she took offense at the deception and distrusted what the family was told.
In an apparent vindictive gesture toward the Yen family, the ministry in 1999 announced that Yen Hsien-chun had actually gone missing in 1967, 20 years prior to the previously reported date, which significantly reduced her years in active service and therefore the amount of compensation owed to her family as loved ones of a soldier killed in action.
The family was incensed by the ministry’s behavior and filed more lawsuits, beginning years of bitter legal disputes with the government.
In 2000, an administrative court ruled in favor of the family and ordered the ministry to comply with the its demand to establish the precise date of Yen Hsien-chun’s death for the purpose of proper compensation.
Yen Chung-nan’s mother passed away in 2007, as litigation was ongoing.
Yen Chun-nan said the ministry in 2010 revised its story again, saying Yen Hsien-chun went missing in 1998 and died the next year. Pursuant to this version of the official account, the Supreme Administrative Court that year ruled against the ministry, awarding the Yen family NT$3.18 million in compensation.
However, Yen Chung-nan said that the ministry’s dithering over 12 years of a protracted legal battle had caused the family a further loss of income from what would have been generated by the interest on the full compensation loved ones are entitled to and would have received, demanding an additional NT$1.7 million from the ministry.
The ministry objected on the grounds that, according to its archives, the bureau lost contact with Yen Hsien-chun in July 1963, leading to official missing-in-action status the following year, which means she was not technically on active duty in the 30 years between then and her supposed death in the 1990s.
On Jan. 13, the Taipei District Court ruled in favor of Yen Chung-nan, awarding NT$1.7 million in compensation to him as his sister’s surviving heir.
“Winning this case does not make me happy. It took 18 years of my life and my youth. There are numerous intelligence officers who were sent behind enemy lines [in China] and died alone in abject poverty, and they did not receive the care or even the acknowledgement that they were owed,” Yen Chun-nan said.
When asked to comment, a bureau official said it had lost contact with Yen Hsien-chun more than 50 years ago, and attempts to establish the time and circumstances of her death in China have been unsuccessful.
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