PLA officer executed for spying for Taiwan

The mainland has executed an army officer for spying for Taiwan, a Hong Kong newspaper said, but officials yesterday declined to confirm the report in Ta Kung Pao.

According to the report, a military court found Dai Yibiao , a 33-year-old lieutenant in the People's Liberation Army, guilty of transferring over the internet 116 files to a Taiwanese organisation in return for 82,160 yuan (HK$93,891). Nine of the files were top secret, and the others either classified or secret.

A court under the Nanjing Military Region handed down the original sentence, and Dai was executed by gunshot on Friday after an appeal had been rejected and the nation's highest court had upheld the decision, according to the report.

But a spokeswoman for China's Supreme People's Court said she was unaware of the case, while a spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing declined to comment.

A photo of a court statement about the case appeared on the internet, but its authenticity could not be confirmed.

Dai, a native of Zhejiang province , joined the army in 1995, the report said. He originally led a platoon. The Nanjing Military Region groups Zhejiang along with Shanghai and the provinces of Fujian , Jiangxi , Jiangsu and Anhui .

In 2006 Dai allegedly contacted a Taiwanese spy organisation and sent the documents from an internet cafe in Wuxi , Jiangsu, later that year.

The court stripped Dai of his political rights and military rank. The court cited criminal law and military regulations and said the circumstances were 'abominable' and the damage 'extremely serious'.

Lisa Chi Yu-lan, spokeswoman for Taiwan's Ministry of National Defence, said the military would not comment, especially 'when we do not know whether the entire case is factual or not'.

The Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan's top mainland policy planning body, made a similar comment.

In the past nine years, the mainland has executed at least eight mainlanders on charges of spying for Taiwan. They included Major General Liu Liankun and Captain Shao Zhengzhong, who were executed in 1999 for selling secrets to the island military, including information about the mainland's use of unarmed missiles during its intimidation of the island in 1996.

It has also arrested at least 100 Taiwanese on espionage charges, but has rarely executed those convicted.