The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday that while it had not reached a decision on whether to allow defector Justin Lin (
The funeral is to be held next Tuesday.
Asked by reporters yesterday whether the government was likely to allow Lin to return, Premier Yu Shyi-kun said, "The government will base its decision on humanitarian considerations."
Yu stressed that humanitarianism and human rights are goals of the administration.
"We will handle the case in accordance with that spirit," he said.
As to whether Lin will face criminal charges if he is allowed to enter Taiwan, Yu said, "The government is studying the case and will let the public know once it has made a decision."
But the director of the Ministry of National Defense's (MND) Bureau of Military Justice, Rear Admiral Liu Chin-an (劉錦安), said yesterday, "Military prosecutors will begin their investigation and interrogation of Lin if he comes to Taiwan."
Lin, executive director of Bei-jing University's China Center for Economic Research, and an economic adviser to both Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji (朱鎔基) and the World Bank, is believed to be former ROC army officer Lin Cheng-yi (林正義).
He is thought to have defected to China by swimming the 2.3km from Kinmen when he was an army commander stationed on the outlying island in 1979.
Lin's father died earlier this month and Lin's family in Taiwan has expressed his wish to attend the funeral next week.
Answering questions from reporters, Secretary-General to the President Chen Shih-meng (陳師孟) said yesterday that the Presidential Office has no particular stance on the matter, and added, "We will leave it to the Executive Yuan to deal with."
Chen said, however, that Lin's defection had had consequences for some of his former comrades.
He said that some senior officers, subordinates, and fellow-commanders who had served with Lin were disciplined after his defection. "Lin should apologize for what he did back then," he said.
The TSU held a press conference on the matter yesterday. Legislator Su Ying-kwei (蘇盈貴) said that the TSU is not against allowing Lin come to Taiwan. "But defection is defection. He should not be treated as a hero," he said.
Many KMT and DPP lawmakers have called on the government to allow Lin to return to Taiwan.
The MAC is responsible for coordinating the inter-ministerial decision making process on the issue.
The MAC's director of information and liaison, Chen Chung-hong (陳崇弘), told the Taipei Times yesterday that it had had a broad exchange of opinions with several ministries yesterday, especially the MND.
In addition, Control Yuan members Lin Chiou-shan (林秋山) and Huang Chin-jenn (黃勤鎮) yesterday formed a task force to investigate the issue.
Lin Chiou-shan told the Taipei Times that the first stage of the investigation will focus on collecting data, including information on how the military dealt with Lin's disappearance and whether he took classified military information with him when he defected.
Lin Chiou-shan said that, if Lin had taken a battle plan or other military secrets with him -- as he is widely believed to have done -- the military should not simply have listed him as "missing," as it did 23 years ago.
Lin was listed as "missing" after his disappearance and listed as dead within a year.
He was never listed as a fugitive or a traitor.
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