Taipei - A Taiwan court Thursday sentenced a Singaporean businessman to two years and four months in prison over the embezzlement of 30 million US dollars intended to be used to persuade Papua New Guinea (PNG) to switch diplomatic recognition to from China Taipei.

"The court has found Wu Shih-tsai guilty of forgery of document(s) and defamation and thus sentenced him to two years and four months in prison," said the Taipei District Court in its verdict.

As for the embezzlement part, the court said there will be a separate trial on this.

Wu, who acted as a middleman to broker on behalf of Taiwan for PNG to switch diplomatic recognition from Beijing to Taipei, was charged with sending fake bank documents to Taiwan's foreign ministry to try to prove that the money Taiwan had given him was still in a Singapore bank.

He was also charged with defamation for saying that a Taiwan man threatened him with a gun, but the court later found that the man never existed.

The botched diplomatic scandal occurred in 2006 when Taiwan was seeking to launch diplomatic ties with PNG, an island state in the Pacific.

Taiwan's Foreign Ministry sent 3 million US dollars intended as aid for PNG to a joint account opened by Wu and Chin Chi-ju, a Chinese-American, at the OCBC bank in Singapore.

When the talks stalled in December 2006, Taiwan decided to pull out, but Ching vanished before the money could be recovered, while Wu was brought back to Taipei to face prosecution.

The scandal tarnished Taiwan's image and led to the resignation of three officials - vice premier Chiu I-jen, vice defence minister Ko Cheng-heng and foreign minister James Huang, in May.

Taiwan's foreign ministry has also filed a lawsuit in Singapore against Wu and Chin for alleged embezzlement. On Wednesday, the Singapore High Court ruled that the two were guilty of embezzlement and must return all the funds to Taiwan. (dpa)