Ex-military man convicted of spying required to return pension

Taipei, June 3 (CNA) Retired Lieutenant Colonel Tu Yung-hsin (杜永心) has been deprived of his pension and other privileges after the Supreme Administrative Court upheld a ruling by a lower court following his conviction in a Chinese spying case.

Tu was found guilty of violating the National Security Act by the New Taipei District Court in October 2020 for attempting to recruit intelligence assets in Taiwan at the behest of China's Central Military Commission.

That ruling was upheld and Tu's conviction and four-year jail sentence were finalized by the Supreme Court in 2022, and he is currently serving that jail term.

Following that ruling, however, the military's Air Force Command Headquarters decided that Tu had lost his right to a pension and other retirement benefits, and ordered him to pay back the benefits he had collected over the previous 12 years since October 2011.

Those benefits, including a pension and preferential interest on a savings account, totaled around NT$10 million (US$310,550).

Unhappy over the military's decision, Tu filed an administrative suit with the Taipei High Administrative Court, which sided with the military.

He then appealed the decision to the Supreme Administrative Court, which rejected Tu's appeal on May 30. Its ruling is final and cannot be appealed.

According to the original indictment on the spying charge, Tu, 71, moved to China following his retirement from the military in 1994, and by the time he returned to Taiwan in 2011 he had agreed to work for China and develop a spy ring in Taiwan.

One of the people Tu targeted, according to prosecutors, was an active-duty Army lieutenant colonel, surnamed Tsai (蔡).

After providing Tsai with gifts, including tea, liquor, and over NT$200,000 in cash, Tu asked the lieutenant colonel to record a video oath of loyalty to Beijing, prosecutors said.

Tsai thought the request to be strange, and he made secret recordings of his conversations with Tu to protect himself.

He later handed over the recordings along with the money Tu gave him to prosecutors, who decided not to file charges against him.