Yeh Sheng-mao gets a dime

Yeh Sheng-mao, former Intel chief under Chen convicted. AFP claims that Yeh "gets 10-year jail term on graft" although he was neither accused nor convicted of graft, but of leaking official secrets. I have blogged elsewhere on the way the prosecutors appeared to set up the case, refraining from asking for information they knew Yeh had, and then accusing him of illegal actions in not giving it to them. Yeh also gets no bail, though such is routine for KMTers convicted of similar charges, many of whom have jumped bail and moved to China.

The Taipei Times reports that:

Yeh was sentenced to 10 years because he did not show remorse, Tseng said.

“Up to our last hearing for the case, Yeh was still trying to defend himself by saying that he was merely doing his job as the bureau’s director-general,” Tseng said.

Prosecutors are convicting the small fry first to get the confessions they need to convict Chen, since it appears more and more that they lack documentary evidence against him. In China, where detention for months is used to extract confessions, the tactic is universally condemned. This has also been accompanied by a steady flow of stories in the media about the cases, the evidence, and the charges, giving rise to the impression that the accused are being tried in the media. Despite the media's apparent ability to get virtually anything out of the prosecutors, the government is investigating Chen Shui-bian's attorney for reading aloud a poem from Chen to his wife, as an illegal communication. Good thing the government has its priorities straight....

[Taiwan]