A court in Kenya has again postponed the trial of five Taiwanese nationals charged with fraud to July 26. The trial had been set to go ahead on Tuesday, having already been postponed.
The five are in addition to the 45 Taiwanese nationals extradited from Kenya to China in April. The issue of extraditing Taiwanese fraud suspects to China has caused renewed controversy in recent weeks. Beijing claims jurisdiction under international law as the targets of the suspects’ alleged phone scams are Chinese. Public opinion in Taiwan however has viewed the recent deportation to China of Taiwanese suspects from Kenya and Malaysia as an issue that touches on national sovereignty.
The five suspects were for the first time set to appear in court on June 6 but the trial was postponed. Foreign ministry official Chen Chun-shen said Tuesday that Taiwan’s representative to South Africa has been in Kenya since June 30 to deal with the matter. However Chen said that Beijing is still adamant about having the suspects sent to China.
Chen said that the incident has already caught international media attention. He said he hopes that media exposure can put pressure on Kenya to repatriate the suspects to Taiwan instead.