TAIPEI, May 15 (Reuters) - A court in Taiwan on Tuesday sentenced former president Ma Ying-jeou to four months jail over a leak of information related to national security, legal documents showed, but he vowed to appeal, and could avoid jail altogether by paying a fine. In the first conviction in a series of lawsuits against Ma since he left office in 2016, Taiwan's High Court overturned a lower court's judgment of not guilty, saying that he violated a communication and surveillance act. Taiwan's High Court found that "Ma Ying-jeou violated the Communication and Surveillance Act," when he leaked information relating to national security and opposition lawmaker Ker Chien-ming, which should have been confidential. Ma's sentence could, however, be avoided on payment of a fine of T$120,000 ($4,019), the court said in a statement, in line with Taiwan law that allows such payments for lighter sentences, instead of going to jail. A former stalwart of the opposition Nationalist or Kuomintang Party, Ma was Taiwan's president from 2008 to 2016, ushering in an era of closer ties with mainland China. Beijing has taken an increasingly hostile stance over the past two years towards Taiwan, following the election of Tsai Ing-wen of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party to succeed Ma.
Former President of Taiwan Ma Ying-jeou is sentenced to four months in prison on charges he leaked classified information from a wiretap.