Despite strong pressure from China, a Kenyan court yesterday acquitted five Taiwanese charges of for telecommunications fraud in Nairobi and demanded their deportation to Taiwan.
According to a Ministry of Foreign Affairs source, the court found five Taiwanese and 35 Chinese fraud suspects not guilty in a closely watched telecommunications fraud case.
“The court also demanded that the five Taiwanese be deported to Taiwan. If Chinese authorities forcibly send them to China, they will be no different from bandits,” the source said, adding that the exact time of the pending deportation of the five Taiwanese was still to be determined.
Photo: Reuters
Earlier yesterday, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Eleanor Wang (王珮玲), citing a “credible source” who spoke on condition of anonymity to the Taipei Liaison Office in South Africa, said the Kenyan court moved up a court session originally scheduled for Aug. 23 to 9am local time yesterday.
Wang said the liaison office immediately sent staff to Nairobi to hear the court verdict and keep an eye on the ensuing developments.
It was believed the five Taiwanese suspects would be deported to China along with their Chinese counterparts, Wang added.
The unexpected change to the convening date for the court session was reportedly prompted by mounting pressure from China, which had insisted on deporting the Taiwanese suspects to China for further investigation on the grounds that most of those targeted were Chinese.
The session had been postponed five times since the case was first heard in Nairobi in April.
The five Taiwanese are among a group of 77 fraud suspects — 48 Chinese, 28 Taiwanese and one Thai — detained by Kenyan police in November 2014 and charged with engaging in unlicensed telecommunications activities, using radio equipment without a license and organized crime.
Twenty-three of the Taiwanese were deported to Beijing following their acquittal by a court on April 5.
Meanwhile, the ministry yesterday confirmed that a total of 11 Taiwanese have been arrested in Indonesia for alleged involvement in telecom fraud, after a police raid at two residences in Jakarta.
Indonesian police arrested a total of 31 suspects, including 11 Taiwanese, during the raid on Thursday, the ministry said.
They have all been detained at an immigration facility pending further investigation, it added.
Taiwan’s representative office in Indonesia has been in close contact with local authorities to keep abreast of the situation, the ministry said.
The ministry said that it would make every effort to ensure the Taiwanese suspects are sent back to Taiwan if the Indonesian authorities decide to deport them after the investigation.
The suspects allegedly engaged in telecom fraud at the luxury residences, where they pretended to be police to scam people in Taiwan and China, Indonesian media reported, citing local police.
There were hundreds of victims, they added.
The police also discovered equipment allegedly used in the fraud, including landlines, cellphones and laptops, the reports said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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