CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : SAN FRANCISCO : Sentence in Murder of Writer Upheld

A California Appeal Court Friday upheld the murder conviction and 25-year sentence of Kuei-Sen Tung in the 1984 murder of Chinese-American journalist Henry Liu. The 1st District Court of Appeal rejected Tung’s contention that the trial court should have instructed jurors to consider a manslaughter conviction rather than murder. The prosecution said Tung was hired by Taiwanese intelligence agent Chen Chi Li to assassinate Liu because he was about to publish a biography of Taiwanese President Chaing Ching-Kuo that threatened to seriously damage the reputation of the government of Taiwan. Tung maintained his motive was patriotism. He and another man rode up to Liu’s Daly City, Calif., home on bicycles on Oct. 15, 1984, and shot him while he was in the garage of his home.