China, Taiwan in rare swap of crime suspects

TAIPEI/BEIJING, Aug 14 (Reuters) Beijing repatriated 19 Taiwanese suspected of fraud, illegal entry and drug trafficking today after the island sent two convicted aircraft hijackers back to China where they face new trials and possible execution.

The swap was rare cooperation in crime fighting between Taiwan and China, diplomatic rivals since their split in 1949 amid civil war. The two governments are not on speaking terms, but trade, investment and tourism have blossomed.

Police detained 14 of the Taiwanese suspects in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian this year during a crackdown for swindling victims of more than 2.8 million yuan (370,000 dollars), the official Xinhua news agency said.

They have confessed to defrauding many Taiwan residents of their money and property by posing as police and officials of banks, the post office and mobile phone companies, Xinhua said.

The other five entered China illegally and were suspected of trafficking drugs, it said.

The 19 suspects were put on a ship bound for the Taiwan-held island of Matsu off Fujian's coast and handed over to Taiwan authorities, Xinhua said.

Taiwan authorities returned hijackers Lin Wenqiang and Yang Mingde to China from a port near the Chinese coast with help from the local Red Cross Society, the government's Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement.

Both had just finished serving jail terms in Taiwan.

Lin and Yang were among 18 people -- hoping for political asylum in Taiwan -- who diverted planes from China in a series of hijackings the mid-1990s. Taiwan has returned 17 people to date, with one remaining.

China claims sovereignty over self-ruled democratic Taiwan and has vowed to bring the island back to the fold, by force if necessary.

As China does not recognise Taiwan's court rulings it may retry the two returnees for hijacking, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of death.

China has retried hijackers since the 1980s, said Nicolas Becquelin, a researcher with Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong.

''China takes a pretty dire view of hijacking, and it's definitely a crime for which the death penalty is one option,'' Bacquelin said.

In 1994 Lin, then 35, dressed up as a Chinese policeman and used a fruit knife and a fake bomb to force a China Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 carrying 130 people into Taipei.

Yang, then 31, was convicted of hijacking a Sichuan Airlines Tupolev 154 with a knife and explosives in 1993.

Both served nine-year jail terms in Taiwan for hijacking and four more years apiece for injuring Taiwan aviation workers.

Taiwan once welcomed defectors from China as ''freedom fighters'' fleeing communism. But in the 1990s, Taiwan cracked down on hijackers to stabilise relations with China.

REUTERS SBC KP2007