Lafayette: Kuo Li-heng, a former Navy captain who had been jailed for 20 years due to his involvement in the Lafayette frigate and minesweeper procurement scandals and was released in June 2015, passed away from cancer at the age of 73, sources with knowledge of the matter confirmed Thursday night.

According to Focus Taiwan, Kuo graduated from the Naval Academy in the late 1970s. In 1993, while serving as an officer in the Navy’s Weapons Procurement Office, Kuo was arrested on suspicion of being involved in the murder of his former boss, Captain Yin Ching-feng, an incident that remains unsolved. During this period, the Navy was advancing procurement projects for France’s Lafayette-class (Kang Ding-class) frigates and minesweepers. Kuo was accused of accepting bribes from arms broker Andrew Wang, the Taiwan representative of the French arms dealer Thomson-CSF, and acting as an insider to facilitate the deal. He was imprisoned in 1994.

Kuo served a 20-year prison sentence and was fined NT$200 million (US$6.83 million). He was paroled at the end of 2013 but, unable to pay the fine, was sent back to serve an additional 180 days in lieu of payment in late 2014. He was finally released in June 2015.