After coming under fire for allegedly being involved in a cover-up involving the murder of navy Captain Yin Ching-feng (尹清楓), Rear Admiral Liu Chin-an (劉錦安), director of the Ministry of National Defense's Judge Advocates Bureau, yesterday resigned from the task force investigating the case.
"Legislator Lee Ching-hua (
The convener of the special task force, State Public Prosecutor-General Lu Jen-fa (
Liu, who was chief of the judicial department of the Navy General Headquarters at the time of Yin's murder in December 1993, has been allegedly linked by some to a conspiracy within the navy to suppress the truth regarding the murder of Yin.
The key element in the case is Liu's role regarding a cassette recording that may have held important clues. Yin allegedly secretly recorded conversations between himself and a number of arms dealers before Yin was murdered under mysterious circumstances.
Several days after the murder, however, the recording was found to have been seriously damaged by apparently being partially demagnetized.
Since the tape had been in the hands of the navy before being turned over to investigators, many felt that the tape had been intentionally altered to protect certain people in the military.
Liu was suspected of having contributed to damaging the tape and was questioned by military investigators in 1994. Liu insisted that he did nothing to the tape and that it was damaged when he first received it.
However, PFP legislator Lee Ching-hua and Yin's widow, Li Mei-kuei (
"He should be put under investigation rather than conducting the investigation," said Lee. Lee held a press conference yesterday before Liu offered to resign.
Liu became a member of the task force -- formed according to the instructions of President Chen Shui-bian (
Meanwhile, a key prosecutor in the special task force investigating the murder and alleged naval weapons procurement irregularities lashed out yesterday at the armed forces for concealing relevant material.
Prosecutor Hung Wei-hua (
"If our investigations are hindered by any party holding back material that we feel is needed, we will not hesitate to use the full force of the law to obtain relevant documents," Hung said, reading from a statement he had prepared for a hastily-called press conference.
The investigation task force on Wednesday sent six investigators to certain military units to collect original documents concerning the purchase of six Lafayette-class frigates from France.
However, what the investigators managed to bring back was only "two small cartons," Hung said.
"And we found that the documents had obviously been rebound -- with the sequence of the papers changed. When we restored the original binding according to the serial numbers of the documents, we found that many of them were missing," Hung said.
Also found missing were some documents which were referred to by documents in the binder, he said.
"Disguising or concealing documents will not be tolerated," Hung said.
Yesterday afternoon Hung made a formal "extra urgent" request to five military units including the Navy General Headquarters, urging them to immediately hand over all related material.
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