An arrest warrant for former National Security Bureau (NSB) officer Liu Kuan-chun (劉冠軍) was issued on April 23, more than two decades after he left Taiwan in the wake of media reports accusing him of embezzling government funds, the bureau said on Thursday.
The warrant issued by the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office says that Liu, a former colonel who was director of the Cashiers’ Section, is accused of surrendering to the Chinese government and engaging in espionage operations.
The maximum penalty for both charges is death.
Liu traveled to China in September 2000 after media reports said that he allegedly embezzled about NT$190 million (US$6.81 million at the current exchange rate) of bureau funds allocated to secret government projects.
An arrest warrant was issued that month on money laundering and corruption charges.
However, a re-examination of the case determined that Liu might have leaked information from the projects, for which he was responsible, an unnamed prosecutors’ office official said.
Classified documents were disclosed by the media in 2002, two years after Liu left Taiwan, some bearing a watermark that showed they were printed in Liu’s office at the NSB, the official said.
Liu took the highly classified documents with him when he fled to China, investigators said.
He is believed to have given the documents to Chinese authorities and even helped them decipher messages, investigators said.
In February, the bureau transferred the case to the high prosecutors’ office, which on April 23 issued a warrant for Liu’s arrest on espionage charges.
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office, which is in charge of Liu’s embezzlement case, in March applied for a court order to confiscate his assets in Taiwan, which total about NT$200 million.
However, the whereabouts of Liu, now in his 60s, remains unknown.
His wife, Meng Wen-hua (孟雯華), reportedly left Taiwan with their children the day after Liu departed.
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