TAIPEI, Taiwan -- A military court Monday indicted a former University of Minnesota student on charges she spied for Communist China.
If convicted, Yeh Tao-lay, 29, could be sentenced to death.
According to a statement from the nation's highest security agency, the Taiwan Garrison Command, the indictment said Yeh confessed she was trained by Communist Chinese agents in the United States and then sent as a spy to Taiwan.
The command would not say when Yeh was arrested and how long she has been under detention but said relatives and newsmen will be allowed to cover the trial. No date for the trial has been decided upon.
While studying for a masters degree at the Universiy of Minneosta in 1974, Yeh met and was recruited by a Communist Chinese agent named Chang Chao-ching, and his wife, Chen Ke-feng, the indictment said.
In 1977, she was told by Chang that she had been accepted by the 'United Front,' a Communist Chinese propaganda organization, as a regular staff member, Yeh reportedly said during interrogation.
Yeh, who studied micro photography, reproduced a number of Communist Chinese propaganda books on microfilms and took them into Taiwan hidden in hollowed heels of two pairs of shoes.
Returning to Taiwan in April 1978, Yeh began collecting intelligence materials and addresses of government officials, the indictment said. Yeh sent the information to a Communist agent named Yao Yu in Hong Kong and Chang in America.
Under prevailing martial law in Taiwan, spy cases and other major crimes are tried by military courts.
The only penalty for working for the Chinese Communists is death under the harsh anti-communist law. But the maximum sentences are usually commuted to at least 12 years imprisonment.
Yeh's is the third sedition case announced by the government within one week.
A former sailor who jumped ship in the United States and later returned to Taiwan was indicted for joining a 'seditious organization' in America and trying to organize a movement to overthrow the government through violence. And a taxi driver was sentenced to five years for publicly praising the Chinese Communists.
