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Taiwan ex-general sentenced to life for spying

Taipei (The China Post/ANN) – Taiwan’s former Army Major General Lo Hsien-che has been sentenced to life imprisonment by the Military High Court for spying for China, according to an announcement by the Ministry of National Defense (MND).

Lo was found guilty of passing confidential military information to Chinese intelligence agents on five occasions in exchange for bribes, meaning he had seriously violated his duty to serve his country, the MND said in a statement.

He could have been executed for violating the Armed Forces Criminal Code, however, as he already confessed his crime and cooperated during the investigation, the Military High Court decided to sentence him to life in prison, the MND statement said.

The MND noted that his sentence could be appealed.

Lo is believed to be the highest-ranking Taiwanese military officer to have been nabbed on espionage charges in nearly five decades.

The 51-year-old Lo, who used to work at Army Command Headquarters, was arrested in late January on charges of spying for China.

It was reportedly that Lo was recruited as a Chinese spy when he was stationed in Thailand in 2004.

For each batch of confidential information he leaked to China, Lo reportedly received between US$100,000 and US$200,000.

Lo also played a role in the “Po Sheng” project that is jointly run by the U.S. and Taiwan, according to local media report.

Part of the project involved the use of advanced U.S. military technology to build an encrypted communications system for the island’s armed forces.

The MND previously claimed that the army general did not have access to confidential information, but declined to say whether he had been involved in the crucial U.S.-Taiwan collaboration project.