Premier Lin Chuan said Saturday that the government is seeking to bring home five Taiwanese nationals acquitted of criminal charges in Kenya.
The Central News Agency (CNA) reports that the five were acquitted by a court in Kenya of charges related to running a telecommunication system without a license, conspiring to commit a felony and engaging in organized crime. Twenty-three other Taiwanese suspects were acquitted of similar charges in April but were later deported to China at Beijing’s request.
CNA said Kenyan police had planned to put the latest five defendants on a plane sent by China early Saturday. The decision was postponed however after Taiwan's representative to South Africa, John Chen, intervened. Chen is still negotiating with Kenyan and Chinese officials at a police station in Nairobi where the five Taiwanese are being held, CNA said.
China claims jurisdiction in the case on the grounds that the victims of the defendants’ alleged telecom fraud are Chinese. For Taiwan, however, deportations of Taiwanese suspects to China are seen as an infringement on the country’s sovereignty.