Taiwan prosecutors indict Hong Kong man for assaulting former Japanese journalist... Sentenced to 5 years in prison

Taiwanese prosecutors have indicted a Hong Kong man who assaulted a former journalist for a Japanese media outlet and sought a heavy sentence.

According to Taiwanese media such as the Free Times on the 7th, the Taichung Prosecutor's Office in central Taichung indicted Liao Gangpa, a Hong Kong man of Chinese nationality, who attacked Akio Yaita, head of the Indo-Pacific Strategy Think Tank (IPST), who served as the Taipei bureau chief of Japan's Sankei Shimbun in July, on charges of causing harm under criminal law and violating the Ordinance on the Prevention of Organized Crime.

The prosecution believed that Liao Gangpa committed the crime under the instructions of a person named ‘Chen Weihao’ and asked the court to sentence him to five years in prison.

According to the prosecution's investigation, Chen Weihao, a member of the 'Washing War', a member of the Hong Kong violent gang triad, formed a cross-border violent organization out of dissatisfaction with Representative Yaita's political remarks related to the cross-strait (China and Taiwan).

Chen Weihao instigated the assault on Representative Yaita by four members of the Liao Gang faction and the War On Lok (和安樂), another faction of the Triads, who entered Taiwan on July 1 and learned of Representative Yaita's event schedule and divided their roles.

When the gang member who was originally supposed to carry out the assault left Taiwan due to the risk, Chen Weihao raised the compensation to 100,000 Hong Kong dollars (about 17 million won) and had Liao Gangpa take charge of the crime alone.

On the 6th of the same month, Liao Gangpa assaulted Representative Yaita and then disguised himself and tried to leave the country on a flight to Busan, but was arrested by the police at Taichung Airport.

Prosecutors said the purpose of their crimes was to warn others by mobilizing cross-border violence and media reports.

The prosecution requested the court to sentence them to severe punishment, saying that their crime was carefully planned in advance and that the Liao Gang faction showed no signs of remorse.

Prosecutors are also looking for four accomplices who fled overseas, while investigating whether there are other people behind the incident and helpers in Taiwan.

Meanwhile, the Northern New Taipei City District Prosecutors' Office requested a 10-year prison term for Chen Jian-shiung, CEO of Yuhuotech, who illegally purchased high-end semiconductors subject to export control from Texas Instruments (TI) of the U.S. and Analog Devices (ADI), a global non-memory semiconductor company, by stealing the name of the National Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST), a state-run defense industry research institute, and then smuggled them to China and Hong Kong.

Prosecutors said that since 2017, CEO Chen has earned illegal profits worth 360 million Taiwanese dollars (approximately 15.1 billion won) by smuggling out chips that can be used for military purposes, such as radars, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and missiles, and that his actions have affected Taiwan's national security and international image.

The remaining nine defendants were sentenced to 1 to 8 years in prison.