Army Major General Hsieh Chia-kang (謝嘉康), who is being investigated over allegations he leaked classified information on Taiwan’s missile defense systems to China, was released late on Tuesday after posting bail, prosecutors said.
They confirmed that they also questioned a second suspect, retired army colonel Hsin Peng-sheng (辛澎生), who allegedly recruited Hsieh, adding that he was released on bail early yesterday.
Both suspects posted bail of NT$100,000 and have been forbidden from leaving the nation, the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office said.
Photo: Chang Chung-yi, Taipei Times
Prosecutors said that Hsieh and Hsin were recruited by Chinese intelligence agents and attempted to develop a spy ring in Taiwan, in contravention of the National Security Act (國家安全法).
Hsieh was the deputy commander of the Matsu Defense Command on and the commander of the Air Defense Missile Command, where he had access to the specifications of all the nation’s missiles, including the US-made MIM-104F Patriot missile and the domestically developed Tien Kung III and Hsiung Feng 2E cruise missiles.
Travel records indicate that Hsieh traveled to Thailand and Malaysia, where he allegedly met with Chinese intelligence operatives and might have received financial rewards for acquiring and passing on military secrets to the Chinese, and agreed to recruit other people for to set up a spy ring in Taiwan, prosecutor Wang Po-tun (王柏敦) said.
The case first came to the attention of the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau last year, when sources told the bureau that Hsin was working in the tourism industry after his retirement and had been recruited by Chinese intelligence officials when he was leading a Taiwanese tour group in China last year.
Hsin, who had met Hsieh when they were serving in the same unit, persuaded Hsieh to obtain classified military materials.
In a statement yesterday, the Ministry of National Defense announced that Hsieh had been relieved of his job as deputy commander of the Matsu Defense Command and has been demoted to an adviser at the Air Force Command Headquarters, pending the outcome of the judicial probe.
“Someone in our military last year alleged that Hsieh had been in contact with a person who had been recruited by Chinese intelligence officers, and told our national security agency to investigate the case at that time,” the ministry said in the statement.
Raids were on Tuesday conducted at the two suspects’ residences, in Kaohsiung and Pingtung County to gather evidence.
The conclusions of the investigators will be passed on to the US, Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee (李大維) said yesterday, responding to questions at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign and National Defense Committee.
“The US is gravely concerned about intelligence leaks in the case,” he said, addressing questions on whether the case would affect US arms sales to Taiwan and relations between the two nations.
Additional reporting by CNA
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift