The National Security Bureau (NSB) has received more than 10 pieces of intelligence on people threatening to assassinate the country’s leaders so far this year, most of which involve “mentally unstable” people, a senior official said yesterday.
“Those threats have either been posted on the Internet or made in letters to news media editors,” National Security Bureau Director Tsai Der-sheng (蔡得勝) told reporters before attending a hearing of the legislature’s Foreign and Defense Affairs Committee.
Asked who has been the main target of the threats, Tsai said that over the past year, the number of death threats targeting President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has far -outnumbered those targeting Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who is challenging Ma’s re-election bid.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
While the bureau already keeps close tabs on homeland security intelligence, Tsai Der-sheng said, these efforts have been further intensified over the past year in the run-up to the presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 14.
“Upon obtaining intelligence about threats to kill the national leader or other prominent figures, our bureau tends to investigate immediately. Should any suspicious criminal activity be discovered, we transfer the cases to law enforcement authorities for further investigation,” Tsai Der-sheng said.
Citing a bureau analysis, Tsai Der-sheng said most of the death threats received were made by people who have either been involved in long legal suits or who feel they are victims of miscarriages of justice. Others were from eccentrics who wrote threatening letters to vent their grievances.
Tsai Der-sheng further said the bureau has transferred several such cases to the Criminal Investigation Bureau under the National Police Agency for further investigation.
With the approach of the next presidential and legislative elections, Tsai Der-sheng said, the NSB will step up its intelligence-gathering to ensure homeland security and protect the safety of all the candidates running in the elections.
Meanwhile, a story in the Chinese-language United Evening News yesterday quoted an unnamed official as saying that the Presidential Office had not received an unusually high number of threatening letters or parcels this year, despite the approach of the elections.
During Ma’s three-and-a-half years in office, the official said, the Presidential Office received the greatest number of threatening letters and parcels in 2009, when more than 10 such letters, parcels or e-mails were received.
This year, only three threatening e-mails had been received as of yesterday, the official said.
According to the official, all such threats are sent to the Criminal Investigation Bureau or the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau for investigation. Some of the senders have been convicted and are serving time, the official added.
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