Chinese Writer’s Murder : Case Linked to Taiwan Leaders Is Nearing Trial

A reputed hit man from Taiwan is to go on trial here Monday for the 1984 murder of Chinese-American writer Henry Liu, who was killed in a conspiracy directed by officials in Taiwan who apparently wanted to silence him.

Liu, a Taiwan native and author of Chinese-language articles and books critical of the government of his homeland, was shot to death in the garage of his Daly City home just south of San Francisco.

The slaying from the start was a mystery on an international scale. To unravel the crime, Daly City detectives traveled to Los Angeles, New York and, finally, Taiwan. They ultimately concluded that the murder of Liu, a U.S. citizen, was ordered by high-ranking officials of Taiwan and carried out by Taiwan’s largest criminal syndicate, United Bamboo.

Tung Kuei-sen, 35, an admitted member of United Bamboo, will go on trial in a San Mateo County court on Monday. Authorities here have issued arrest warrants for two accomplices. But the United States has no extradition treaty with Taiwan, so Tung likely will be the only person to face trial in this country for the crime. He faces a maximum of life in prison.

“We will probably never have another case like it,” Daly City Detective Donald McCarthy said.

Part of Expansion Plan

Liu’s murder, it turned out, was the first step in a larger plan by United Bamboo to expand in this country by taking control of crime in New York’s Chinatown, becoming a major supplier of heroin nationally and building gambling and prostitution operations, prosecutors said.

But as local police investigated the murder, federal authorities put a stop to the gang’s ambitious plans by arresting 10 of its leaders in September, 1985, in New York and elsewhere in the United States. Tung, who fled after Liu’s murder, was arrested in Brazil at the request of U.S. authorities and was extradited to this country to face trial, first in the federal racketeering case in New York aimed at United Bamboo operations in this country and now in the Liu murder.

In the New York case, Tung was convicted with the other 10 United Bamboo gang members and associates in 1986 and sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiring to import more than 600 pounds of heroin from Thailand.

Liu’s murder prompted Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-N.Y.) of the House Asian and Pacific affairs subcommittee to hold hearings, and Congress and the State Department condemned the murder. A congressional aide specializing in Asian affairs said the U.S. government’s condemnation “heightened the warning that Taiwan cannot treat California as a province” and served as a threat that military aid would be cut if similar incidents occurred again.

Details of Crime Clear

Today, details of the crime itself are clear. Based on court proceedings in this country and in Taiwan, Vice Adm. Wang Hsi-ling, then chief of military intelligence in Taiwan, directed Chen Chi-li, the boss of United Bamboo, to teach Liu a “lesson.” Chen in turn told his soldiers, Tung and Wu Tun, 38, to commit the crime.

Wang admitted in a Taiwan military court that he told Chen to threaten Liu but denied he meant for Liu to be killed. Wang nonetheless was sentenced in 1985 to life imprisonment. Two underlings in the intelligence bureau were sentenced to lesser terms. Wu and Chen are serving life sentences in Taiwan.

Prosecutors, police and the murderers themselves say Taiwan embarked on the plot in an effort to prevent Liu from finishing a book that would embarrass the then-ruling Chiang family in Taiwan. Wang also hoped that other Taiwanese in this country who were critical of their homeland would be scared into silence, according to the trial testimony in New York.

By carrying out Wang’s wish, Chen hoped United Bamboo would win “political patronage, protection and prestige in Taiwan,” all of which would have aided Chen in his mission to establish his gang in this country’s underworld, Assistant U.S. Atty. Anne T. Vitale of New York said in a court document that set out the facts of the case.

There is little about Tung’s role in it all. He admitted in the New York trial and to police that after getting his orders from Chen, he and Wu drove to Liu’s neighborhood, donned wigs and phony mustaches, and hid in his garage. When Liu came downstairs, Wu fired, hitting him in the head. Tung fired two more shots, striking Liu in the abdomen.

They escaped, first to the Monterey Park home of a fellow gang member, then to Houston and eventually to Taiwan. But in Taiwan, the government, pressured by the United States, arrested Chen and Wu. Tung escaped, making it to Brazil where he was caught almost a year later.

Given that Tung admitted his crime in New York, Donald Gray, Tung’s lawyer here, is at a loss to develop a defense strategy for his client. Like prosecutors in the case, he wonders why Tung wants to go through with the two-week trial.

“I suspect he just wants to tell the jury and everyone else his story,” Gray said. “He thought he was doing his government’s bidding. . . . And he was left twisting slowly, slowly in the wind.”

If the trial serves as a footnote to a Byzantine plot that led to Liu’s death, then the overall criminal case may be little more than a footnote to organized crime in this country. The New York convictions put the United Bamboo leadership in this country behind bars. In Taiwan, authorities cracked down on the gang after the murder and imprisoned its leaders there.

Third Book Unlikely

Liu’s third book probably never will be published. It was to be, like his first two, critical of the late Chiang Kai-shek, who established the island nation after fleeing advancing Communist forces on mainland China in 1949, and his son, Chiang Ching-kuo, president of Taiwan until his death Jan. 13.

“This was a loss not just in the Chinese world. The death of Henry Liu leaves a tremendous gap in who could write the history of the relations between Taiwan and the United States from 1949 on,” said Jerome Garchik, an attorney for the Liu family who is appealing a federal judge’s order dismissing a suit by Liu’s widow against Taiwan.