Taiwan Gangster Admits Slaying of S.F. Journalist

A Taiwanese underworld figure wanted in the United States in connection with the slaying of San Francisco journalist Henry Liu has confessed to the October murder and has implicated at least one Taiwanese intelligence officer in the plot, the official Taiwan news agency reported Monday.

The Central News Agency said Chen Chi-li, reputed leader of the United Bamboo gang who was arrested in Taiwan Nov. 13 during a massive crackdown on the organization, did not name the intelligence officer connected to the murder during his confession. The news agency report was carried in Chinese language newspapers in California and by the Associated Press.

Liu, 52, an author and Chinese-language journalist whose writings were often critical of Taiwan’s Nationalist Party and president Chiang Ching-kuo, was shot Oct. 15 in the garage of his Daly City home, south of San Francisco.

Daly City police have issued a murder warrant for Chen, 43, and have identified two other Taiwanese United Bamboo members, Wu Tun, 38, and Tung Kuei-sen, 32, as suspects. Wu is being held in Taiwan and Tung is reportedly at large in the Philippines. San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein has said that Taiwan authorities have told her they will not extradite the men to the U.S. for prosecution.

Police Surprised

At the Daly City Police Department, the report that Chen apparently had implicated a government official in the assassination of Liu came as a surprise.

“I didn’t expect a lot of this stuff,” said Lt. Tom Reese, who is heading the investigation. “I certainly didn’t expect it to go this far. It has become an international incident and a very sensitive issue.”

Reese added that he had not received official word from Taiwan regarding the reported confession. He said he will meet with FBI agents in San Francisco to discuss ways of contacting Chen or at least of securing a transcript of his statements made in Taiwan.

The San Francisco office of the Taiwanese Coordinating Council for North American Affairs, the nation’s unofficial diplomatic mission, declined to comment on the report. Backers of the Taiwanese regime in San Francisco’s Chinese community argued, however, that even if a military intelligence official told Chen to commit the murder, that would not mean that the government sanctioned the killing.

“The government (of Taiwan) is not like that,” said one such backer, who blamed the reports on the Communist government in Peking. “We like to be the showcase of democracy for that area.”

The officer alleged to have taken part in the murder works for an intelligence agency connected with the Defense Ministry, according to Chinese-language press reports in Los Angeles. That agency is headed by Si-Ling Wang, a two-star admiral who was military attache for the Taiwanese delegation in Washington several years ago.

Meanwhile, the investigation in the United States has focused on the search for a mysterious tape recording purportedly made by Chen and said to detail the murder and to name Taiwanese government officials as accomplices. For several weeks, FBI agents and police investigators have centered their search for the tape on the Los Angeles area. Although they have not yet obtained the recording, police are convinced that it exists and that it would help secure arrest warrants for Wu and Tung.

“A month ago, we learned a tape recording had been made by Chen Chi-li and that it was in California. We’ve been trying to find it ever since,” said Daly City Detective Michael Scott.

“We’ve been told that it mentions Henry Liu’s lack of gratitude to Taiwan as a motive and goes into detail about who drove, who did the actual shooting and possible connections to Taiwanese officials,” Scott said.

Last week, a pro-Peking newspaper in Hong Kong, Wen Wei Po, reported that the contents of Chen’s tape recording had been leaked to its San Francisco office. The newspaper said Chen made the tape soon after returning to Taiwan from the United States on Oct. 22 and discovering that the government had “tricked him.”

Possible Motive

Chen, according to the paper, said Liu was ordered killed because he was disloyal to the nation and to the Chiang family, who “single-handedly brought Liu up” and “sent him to America.”

Liu, who moved to the United States 17 years ago from Taiwan, wrote critically of China’s Communist regime but was best known for his articles critical of the Kuomintang, the ruling Nationalist Party in Taiwan, and for a disparaging biography of Taiwan President Chiang.

From the outset of Liu’s murder--which has taken on an air of international mystery--the journalist’s family and friends have maintained that evidence suggested the involvement of Taiwan authorities. They allege numerous connections between Chen Chi-li and officials in Taiwan.

“This is what we’ve been saying all along, that Chen Chi-li is not the mastermind,” said Jerome M. Garchik, a lawyer for the Liu family. “For Taiwan to now say it’s going to investigate its security people indicates there might be a power struggle going on for the truth, much like the situation in Poland (where the government is trying four security men for the murder of activist priest Jerzy Popieluszko).”

But Garchik cautioned that word of Chen’s confession might be an effort by Taiwan authorities to forestall attempts at further investigation and quiet the uproar caused by last week’s Wen Wei Po article.

“We still don’t know how high this thing goes. Finding the tape recording is still critical to getting the whole truth out,” he said.

Times staff writer David Holley also contributed to this story.