TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Six Chinese nationals who hijacked a jetliner and forced it to Seoul at gunpoint 15 months ago were pardoned and released from jail Monday and allowed to fly to Taipei to start new lives.
When the six arrived in Taipei, they were each given the equivalent of $750 as 'pocket money' by the Free China Relief Association, a semi-official agency.
The association, organized to help refugees from China, said it will offer 'all the assistance needed' for the six to start a new life in Taiwan.
The six Chinese were convicted of hijacking a Chinese jetliner to Seoul on May 5, 1983. They forced the pilots of the British-built Trident to fly to South Korea at gunpoint, landing at an airport east of Seoul.
Korean authorities returned the plane to China but arrested the six. A Seoul court later tried and sentenced them to four to six years in jail.
After serving one year and three months in jail, the South Korean government pardoned them Monday and sent them to Taiwan.
Upon arrival in Taipei, Zhuo Chang-ren, 37, a former Peking government employee and one of the convicted hijackers, made an emotional appeal to Chinese to allow his family join him.
His eyes brimming with tears, Zhuo told a news conference, 'I have left behind on the China mainland a wife and three children. If the Chinese communists are human beings, they should send them to join me here.'
Zhuo, serving as the group's spokesman, repeatedly defended Taiwan's ambassador to Seoul, Hsueh Yu-chi, who has been criticized by some Taipei newspapers for failing to win an earlier release of the six hijackers from the Korean jail.
Zhou also said they were first 'greatly elated when they succeeded in taking the plane to South Korea, which we knew is a great ally of Taiwan. But we fell into great distress when we learned that there was such thing as international law against plane hijacking.'
He said they were 'treated well in the Korean jail but you know a jail is a jail.'
He said they understood why the Seoul courthad sentenced them to imprisonment 'because South Korea is a democratic country and it has to abide by international laws.'
