The Supreme Administrative Court last week rejected an appeal from a former Coast Guard Administration (CGA) commander convicted of spying who was seeking to overturn an order to repay NT$5.13 million (US$163,480) in pension payments.
The Supreme Court in January last year issued a final ruling against former CGA colonel Yeh Jui-chang (葉瑞璋) on charges of providing classified documents to China, sentencing him to eight months in prison and confiscating NT$15,000 in illicit proceeds.
Following the Supreme Court ruling, the Ministry of National Defense determined that Yeh, who retired in 2008, had forfeited his retirement benefits and ordered him to repay the NT$5.13 million he received through benefits or preferential interest rates from July 2014, when he began providing documents to China.
Photo: Taipei Times
Yeh filed a lawsuit with the High Administrative Court’s Taipei branch, saying that the ministry’s order contravened his constitutional rights by seeking benefits already paid to him.
It upheld the ministry’s authority to confiscate the pension payments, ruling that Yeh lost his retirement benefits when he was convicted in accordance with the National Security Act (國家安全法).
The Supreme Administrative Court on Thursday last week upheld that ruling.
Yeh in 2013 was approached by fellow retired CGA commander Lee Ching-hsien (李慶賢) to meet with a Chinese intelligence officer, who offered Yeh money to spy for China, court documents said.
Yeh obtained naval defense materials, construction plans for a facility on Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島) and internal CGA reports, which he gave to Lee, who passed them on to the Chinese officer, who paid Yeh NT$15,000, the documents said.
Yeh is not the first retired military officer to have their pension confiscated.
The National Security Act, amended in June 2022, states that military and government personnel, civil servants and teachers who commit treason, endanger national security or breach national security laws would no longer be able to receive pensions, and the government can recover retirement benefits already paid out.
A Control Yuan report released in April showed that of 19 government or military personnel convicted of espionage after the act was updated, nine have had their pensions revoked, while the recovery of retirement benefits of the others were under way.
The nine cases included retired army lieutenant colonel Tu Yung-hsin (杜永心), who in 2022 was convicted for developing a spy network for China in Taiwan.
The Air Force Command at the time concluded that Tu should lose the right to claim retirement benefits from the date the sentence became final on March 3, 2022.
Additionally, Tu was required to return the retirement benefits, such as pension and preferential savings interest, that were already received starting from the actual date of the crime, which was Oct. 15, 2011.
Tu appealed, but the Supreme Administrative Court ruled against him. He was estimated to have lost pension and benefits of more than NT$10 million.
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