A Beijing court on Thursday handed down jail sentences of up to 15 years to 50 people deported from Kenya for telecoms fraud, including 22 from self-ruled Taiwan.
Taiwan’s government criticised the case, saying China had ignored vital evidence.
Over the past two years countries including Kenya, Spain, Vietnam and Cambodia have deported hundreds of people from Taiwan to China for telecoms fraud, sparking accusations from Taipei that Beijing was effectively kidnapping its citizens.
China has defended the deportations, saying the crimes were committed against people in China and that as Taiwan is a part of China it was natural foreign governments should send these people to China rather than Taiwan.
In a brief statement, the Beijing court said that the 50 were given jail terms ranging from one year and nine months to 15 years and had also been given unspecified fines.
It did not give specific details of the sentences for the 22 people from Taiwan. The cases were tried in two separate batches.
Taiwan’s China policy-making Mainland Affairs Council said Taiwan and China had initially agreed to cooperate in investigating the Kenya case, but China had gone back on its word.
The outside world could only believe justice had been done if the case had fully considered all the evidence and gone through proper legal procedure, the council added.
“In this case, we obtained intelligence on the criminal suspects behind the scenes,” it said.