The Shilin District Court yesterday sentenced a Chinese man who sailed a speedboat near the mouth of the Tamsui River (淡水河) in June to eight months in prison for violating immigration law.
The man, arrested in June by the Coast Guard Administration, received the sentence for contravening the Immigration Act (入出國及移民法) after he entered Taiwan without the necessary permits, the court said in a statement.
The verdict can be appealed.
Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration via CNA
Under the law, people who enter Taiwan without permission are subject to jail terms of up to five years and/or a fine of up to NT$500,000.
The suspect, identified as a 60-year-old man surnamed Ruan (阮), said he was restricted from leaving China over online speech issues.
He brought a speedboat for 36,000 yuan (US $5,036) at Sandu’ao port in Ningde in China’s Fujian Province on the morning of June 8, and then set off from the port by speedboat at about 10pm the same day, according to a statement issued by the Shilin District Prosecutors' Office on Aug. 14.
Ruan drove the boat to Taiwan and arrived at a Tamsui ferry pier in northern Taiwan at about 9am the next day.
The coast guard began monitoring the small boat after it received a report that the vessel had hit a local commercial passenger vessel while approaching Fisherman’s Wharf, the prosecutors' office said.
The man then went ashore and said he wanted to surrender.
He said: “I wanted to flee from there” and “I came from China for democracy,” but he was arrested by the coast guard, which also seized his boat and GPS receiver, the office said.
The Shilin District Court on June 17 approved a request by prosecutors to detain Ruan and hold him incommunicado.
It also ruled that he should be held in custody at a National Immigration Agency detention center.
The court yesterday ruled that the man had taken steps to surrender himself voluntarily to authorities, so deserved a more lenient sentence.
Whether or not the Chinese man will be forced to leave the country will be left to the discretion of the administrative agency, according to the district court.
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