National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Yang Kuo-chiang(楊國強) yesterday said court judges should have handed down more severe sentences against people found guilty of leaking state secrets and that, in his opinion, they deserve capital punishment.
While presenting reports on other national security issues at the legislature’s Foreign and National Defense Committee meeting, Yang was responding to questions from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Tsai Chin-lung (蔡錦隆).
Tsai said there were a number of espionage cases in which Taiwanese were caught passing classified military information to China, and those receiving sentences included retired high-ranking military officers, while others were in active service.
Tsai pointed to the more recent espionage trial of Chinese spy Zhen Xiaojiang (鎮小江), who received only a four-year sentence, while the recruited Taiwanese ex-military officers did not have to serve prison terms after receiving suspended sentences.
“Those were judicial rulings by judges, who made their own independent judgements. If it was up to me, those who have betrayed the nation by leaking state secrets, because such crimes are so detestable, should be given the death sentence,” Yang said.
“The judges have handed all-too lenient sentences. When such espionage cases occur in China, those found guilty are punished very severely,” Yang added.
On other issues, Yang told the legislators that high-level security measures are to be implemented to protect the safety of the presidential candidates from the main political parties.
Yang said that each team of special security guards for the presidential candidates is to increase from 45 officers in the past to 55 this year.
“The personnel planning and preparatory works are being finalized right now. We expect to implement their operation starting on Nov. 13,” Yang said.
NSB officials said that four such special security guard teams have been assigned for the presidential campaign for the election on Jan. 16 next year.
Regarding the Double Ten National Day celebrations this year, Yang promised that security would be beefed up, because it is expected all three presidential candidates from the major parties will be in attendance.
He said “the strongest possible protective net” is to cover both the ground and the airspace of the high-security zones during the day’s event, which included the use of electronic jamming devices against the intrusion of drones or other types of unmanned aerial vehicles.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
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