The Pingtung District Court yesterday found Reunification Alliance Party members Chang Tsun-feng (張存逢) and Huang Jung-te (黃榮德) guilty of espionage and electoral fraud, sentencing them each to four years and six months in prison.
The defendants were found guilty of accepting funds from infiltrators and vote-buying under the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法) and the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法), the court said in a statement.
They would be stripped of their civic rights for two years, it said.
Photo: Lee Li-fa, Taipei Times
The ruling can be appealed.
Chang and Huang, the chairman and chief executive officer of the pro-Beijing party’s Pingtung branch, were indicted for bribing more than 20 voters during the January general elections.
In September and October last year, Chang and Huang treated voters to free trips to China’s Hainan and Shanxi provinces on behalf of Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), the Pingtung District Prosecutors’ Office said.
The Chinese government paid for all the expenses of the participating Taiwanese except airfare, but once in China, TAO personnel subjected them to lectures on Beijing’s Taiwan policy and gave them instructions to vote for certain candidates, the office said.
On Dec. 23, the defendants allegedly gave a speech in support of presidential and legislative candidates of another political party at a convention in Pingtung at Beijing’s behest, it said.
In January, police raided Chang’s and Huang’s residences and offices in Pingtung and questioned people connected to the scheme, indicting the two the following month, it said.
The defendants have been remanded to prevent them leaving Taiwan or attempting to collude, the office said.
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