Ex-legislative candidate guilty of Anti-infiltration Act violations

Taipei, Oct. 16 (CNA) The Taiwan High Court on Thursday sentenced former independent legislative candidate Ma Chih-wei (馬治薇) to two years and eight months in prison for violating the Anti-Infiltration Act and ordered her to return her illegal gains.

The court said that Ma violated Article 4 of the act, which stipulates that no person shall propagate their support or disapproval of an election position if instructed, commissioned or funded by sources of infiltration.

The court said that Ma was aware China is a hostile foreign power that has long threatened to invade Taiwan and sought to interfere with its political order and social stability.

Despite this, she did not resist monetary inducements from personnel affiliated with a Chinese foundation, it added.

By providing information in exchange for funding from an organization under Beijing's control, Ma acted as a "local collaborator" assisting a hostile foreign power in attempting to influence Taiwan's elections, the court said.

The ruling can be appealed.

In March 2024, the Taoyuan District Prosecutors Office indicted Ma for allegedly accepting a total of around US$34,322 in U.S. dollars and digital currency from two friends in China.

Prosecutors said that Ma received the payments in exchange for the contact information of national security personnel and the register of liaisons between the central government to the Legislative Yuan, during an unsuccessful bid for the Legislature in January 2024.

In an earlier trial, the Taoyuan District Court ruled that Ma had violated the Personal Data Protection Act, handing her a sentence of eight months.

However, it found that her actions had not breached the Anti-Infiltration Act and National Security Act because the information she passed on was not taken from confidential documents, and there was no evidence indicating that the two Chinese friends belonged to "infiltration entities."

The latest ruling came following an appeal from prosecutors.

Ma ran as an independent legislative candidate in January 2024 against Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) of the Kuomintang and Cheng Yun-Peng (鄭運鵬) of the Democratic Progressive Party. She got 20,600 votes, accounting for 8.56 percent of the votes.