The Chinese government announced on Wednesday that a group of Taiwanese citizens who were deported to China from Kenya would be prosecuted on charges of telecommunications fraud despite having been acquitted of the same charges by a Kenyan court this month.

The move escalated a diplomatic battle that has outraged Taiwan, which sees the deportation of its citizens to China as an extrajudicial abduction. The case has also raised international legal questions and involved Kenya in the geopolitical maneuvering between China and Taiwan.

The Taiwanese citizens arrived in Beijing on Wednesday, hooded and handcuffed, after being forced onto a plane by Kenyan police officers. Taiwanese legislators accused the Kenyan government of violating international law and its own laws to placate China. They noted that the citizens had been cleared of charges of involvement in a large telecommunications fraud ring based in Kenya.