MAC 'dissatisfied' with China's handling of 10 released prisoners' repatriation

Taipei, Dec. 4 (CNA) The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said Thursday it was "dissatisfied" with the way Chinese authorities repatriated 10 Taiwanese nationals who had completed prison sentences in China for fraud, saying the case was not handled in line with a still-effective cross-strait agreement.

"Although we are dissatisfied, we still have to deal with the issue in a pragmatic way, so we allowed the 10 individuals to board the vessel back to Kinmen yesterday," MAC deputy head and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a regular news briefing in Taipei.

Their return, Liang said, differed from past practice under the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement because of the short notice given by China.

He was responding to a United Daily News (UDN) report stating that 10 Taiwanese nationals, who were involved in fraud in Cambodia, were arrested and jailed in China. After completing their sentences, they were deported on Wednesday and entered Kinmen from Xiamen via the "mini-three-links" ferry route.

Kinmen, a Taiwan-held outlying county located just off China's Fujian Province, is connected to Xiamen by that ferry route.

Citing an anonymous source, the UDN report said Chinese authorities did not give Kinmen prior notice, and that only after the shipping company flagged a potential issue did Taiwanese immigration officers and police deploy to the pier, where most of the 10 arrivals were found without identification documents.

While Liang said China had notified Taiwan in advance, he noted that under usual practice, both sides agree beforehand on the time and means of repatriation. In Wednesday's case, he said, the notice from China was "rather slow."

Asked how long before the repatriation the Chinese side had informed Taiwan, Liang did not give a direct answer, saying only that in the past, "a time would usually be agreed in advance."

According to the MAC, as of Sept. 18 this year, 873 Taiwanese nationals involved in fraud cases were detained, prosecuted, tried or serving prison sentences in China.