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BEIJING — A Chinese man who hijacked a plane 15 years ago and forced it to fly to Taiwan has been sentenced to 12 years in prison, state media said Friday.
Wang Zhihua was sentenced by a court in Hangzhou, the capital of eastern China's Zhejiang province, said the Web site of the state-run China News Service.
In November 1993, Wang boarded a scheduled flight from Hangzhou to Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province opposite Taiwan. He showed fake explosives to the crew, saying he had a bomb, and forced the plane to fly to Taiwan, the report said.
Wang has been detained by the Taiwanese ever since, it said, before being returned to China in February.
Taiwan used to welcome Chinese hijackers as anti-communist heroes, but began prosecuting them as tensions with Beijing lessened and contacts expanded between the sides in the 1990s.
China and Taiwan split during a civil war in 1949 and have been ruled separately since then.
