A Taiwanese businessman charged by the US with conspiracy to illegally export sensitive military goods to Iran appeared in a Balti-more, Maryland, court on Tuesday and was ordered held in custody until the lawyer retained by his family has a chance to consult with him.
Baltimore District Federal Court Judge Susan Gauvey ordered David Chou Loung-hsiang to appear before the court again tomorrow, when his lawyer can be present, to determine whether or not to allow he should be set free on bail pending his trial.
The lawyer, Plato Cacheris, better known as the attorney for Monica Lewinsky in the Clinton sex-scandal case, is expected to return to Washington today from a trip to Geneva, Switzerland.
Chou, 39, who is identified as Chu in the indictment, was aided in court by a State Department translator speaking Mandarin, since he spoke no English in the courtroom.
He listened impassively as Gauvey read the charges against him and his US constitutional rights, nodding blankly in the affirmative as the translator relayed each segment.
US prosecutor James Warwick told the court that US officials in Guam have been in touch with Taiwanese representatives in Guam, and informed the court that Chou's family had hired Cacheris to defend Chou.
Chou was apparently unaware a lawyer had been chosen. Only minutes before, he refused to make a decision on whether the court should appoint a lawyer for him, saying "I have to consult with my family, first."
Two officials of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington attended the hearing, and later held a conference with Warwick.
Meanwhile, another Taiwanese co-conspirator indicted in the case, Eric Chang En-wei, 28, a naturalized US citizen, is a fugitive and believed by US authorities to be hiding in Taiwan.
Chou was arrested last week in Guam as he attempted to board a plane carrying special anti-radar antennas, known as cavity-backed spiral antennas, that can help aircraft evade anti-aircraft radar fixing on a warplane prior to firing on it.
The delivery was the result of a sting operation by US officials, who pretended to sell the goods to Chou. The arrest was the result of a year-long, international smuggling operation that began when Chou and Chang contacted a defense contractor in Maryland about buying US spy-satellite images of Taiwan.
Chou and Chang are charged with violations of arms export-control laws and the 1995 broad embargo on exports to Iran.
The indictment, returned last week, charge them with trying to "enrich" themselves "by shipping aircraft, helicopter and weapons systems parts to Iran, through Taiwan and elsewhere.
The indictment talks about "other unindicted co-conspirators" but US attorneys would not comment on who those might be.
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