The High Court today handed down a prison sentence of two years and eight months to former independent legislative candidate Ma Chih-wei (馬治薇) who was accused of accepting funding from China to run for office.
The court ruled that Ma has contravened the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法).
The ruling can be appealed.
Photo: Taipei Times
A lawyer representing Ma said she admitted contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法), but denied contravening National Security Act (國家安全法) and the Anti-infiltration Act.
Ma did not appear in court today.
In the first trial in the Taoyuan District Court in August last year, she was sentenced to an eight-month prison term for contravening the Personal Data Protection Act by receiving money in exchange for “a large amount of personal contact information” that she had collected.
However, the court ruled that there was no evidence that Ma had breached national security laws since the information she gave to the Chinese individuals was not confidential.
The court also acquitted Ma of contravening the Anti-Infiltration Act, citing a lack of evidence.
Prosecutors filed an appeal against the ruling.
Ma contravened the Anti-Infiltration Act — enacted to prevent the intervention of “foreign hostile forces” in Taiwan — by taking money from an “infiltrative entity” to fund her election bid, prosecutors claim.
She breached the National Security Act by passing on “Taiwanese intelligence and other election-related information to her benefactors,” they said.
The Taoyuan District Prosecutors’ Office in March last year indicted her for contravening the Anti-infiltration Act, National Security Act and Personal Data Protection Act.
Following a preliminary investigation, prosecutors alleged that Ma had received funds in US dollars and tether, a cryptocurrency.
The amount of cryptocurrency that Ma received was equivalent to about NT$1.05 million (US$34,267.25), prosecutors said.
In exchange for these payments, Ma gave her Chinese handlers nicknamed “Sister Bing” (冰姐) and “Ah-Hau” (阿浩) a list of contacts for central government agencies, as well as business cards for personnel involved in national security, they said.
Ma, a former spokeswoman for the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Taoyuan chapter, was expelled by the party on Jan. 6 last year after she was investigated and detained for allegedly receiving campaign donations in the form of cryptocurrency from China.
She ran as an independent in Taoyuan in the Jan. 13 legislative elections.
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