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Former top officials
jailed for espionage
By Rich Chang / Staff reporter
A former Presidential Office official has been sentenced to two years in prison
by the Taiwan High Court for leaking state secrets to China.
Wang Ren-bing (王仁炳) was found guilty on Friday of passing confidential
information about President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) May 2008 inauguration to
Chinese intelligence operatives.
Chen Pin-jen (陳品仁), a former aide of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator
Liao Kuo-tung (廖國棟), was sentenced to eight months in prison for delivering the
confidential information Wang gave him to China.
The two men were found guilty of violating the Classified National Security
Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), but can still appeal the ruling to the
Supreme Court, the high court said.
The ruling said Wang copied confidential documents from 2004 to 2008 when he
worked under then-Presidential Office deputy secretaries-general Chen Che-nan
(陳哲男), Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) and Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍), when then-Democratic
Progressive Party president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was in power.
Wang and Chen Pin-jen handed over seven confidential documents, including notes
from a meeting between Chen Shui-bian and a US official, the ruling said.
Chen Pin-jen also collected information on Taiwan’s UN bids, lists of Taiwanese
athletes at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and information on Taiwanese
legislators visiting China, the ruling added.
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