The Special Investigation Division said Sunday it would not appeal the acquittal of several former Navy officers in a corruption case in the 1991 Lafayette frigates purchase from France. However, they will appeal to the higher court the ruling on two other criminals so as to ensure recovery of commissions from abroad. The prosecutors will not appeal the acquittal on corruption charges in June handed down to retired Vice Admirals Lei Hsueh-ming and Yao Neng-chun, retired Rear Admiral Wang Chin-sheng, and three other middle-level staff officers responsible for the acquisition of the six naval frigates. They will, however, submit an appeal against Kuo Li-heng, the former Navy captain sentenced to 15 years in prison, and his brother Kuo Wen-tien, who was sentenced to a two-year term in August for helping with money laundering. One of the reasons for the appeal was that the court only ruled that the US$17.6 million in kickbacks Kuo Li-heng received from an arms broker be seized by the government, said the investigators. They feared that if no appeal is made, the Swiss authorities could unfreeze the US$520 million bribe deposited in a Swiss bank by arms broker Andrew Wang, who received the money from the French company formerly known as Thomson-CSF for securing the deal. The cost of the warship purchase increased from US$2.45 billion when negotiations began in 1990, to US$2.8 billion when the contracted was sealed the following year, because the French contractor overcharged Taiwan's government and paid at least US$160 million in kickbacks to brokers to secure the deal, according to a previous investigation. 