Two Taiwanese arms brokers are wanted in connection with the high-profile murder of a navy captain at the center of the island's worst military scandal, prosecutors announced Monday.
"The pair have been wanted on allegations of offending the law governing military information," public prosecutor general Lin Chieh-teh told reporters.
"Now they are on the wanted list on charges of homicide," he said.
The two men, named as Wang Chuan-pu and Chin Chih-wen, are believed to have fled overseas after the body of Captain Yin Ching-feng was found floating off east Taiwan in December 1993.
Wang was recently reported seen in the United States.
Yin, head of the navy's arms acquisition office, had apparently been ready to blow the whistle on financial irregularities in a controversial 2.8 billion dollar deal to purchase six Lafayettee class frigates from France.
No one has been charged over Yin's murder, but the navy's former commander-in-chief resigned to take responsibility for his death.
So far 28 people, including 13 military officers and 15 arms brokers, have been jailed on charges relating to the military scandal, including bribery and leaking military secrets.
Taiwan's new President Chen Shui-bian in August ordered a new special investigation into the affair after previous inquiries ended in dead-ends.
Five people, including two retired generals, have since been detained on suspicion of inflating the frigate deal price tag by 20 billion Taiwan dollars (643.7 million US), according to local reports.
Ten other generals and retired officers, including former naval commander-in-chief Admiral Yeh Chang-tung, will also be questioned soon, the reports said.
In France, the scandal forced former foreign minister Roland Dumas to step down as president of the constitutional council, France's top judicial authority.
Dumas' mistress at the time, Christine Deviers-Joncourt, who also faces trial, claims she was hired by French oil group Elf to use her influence to persuade him to reverse his opposition to the contract.
Elf had allegedly in turn been hired by the frigates' manufacturer, Thomson-CSF.
The arms sale was reportedly initially vetoed by the French government after opposition from China, but it eventually went ahead -- TAIPEI (AFP)
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