A French-held list of the names of those who received kickbacks over Taiwan's purchase of Lafayette frigates holds the key to the weapons procurement scandal, a presidential adviser claims.
Having just returned home from a fact-finding tour to France about the 1992 US$2.8 billion deal, National Policy Advisor to the President Hsieh Tsung-min (謝聰敏) said yesterday he met former French foreign minister Roland Dumas twice during his five-day visit from Nov. 19 to Nov. 23.
Dumas told him that the French government and Dumas himself had the name list, Hsieh said.
Citing Dumas, who is facing trial for graft in a Parisian court in January, Hsieh said that there were also people in the US who took commissions, and that Taiwan had received South African assistance in laundering the money, but he gave no further details.
Hsieh said Dumas told him the French side had "lists of people from Taipei and Beijing who received kickbacks from the arms sale."
Hsieh said that evidence suggested French arms dealers had bribed Chinese officials to help reduce Beijing's objection to the deal.
"In the lists there are more people from Beijing than from Taipei ... In terms of kickback volume, some 20 percent went to the pockets of Chinese," Hsieh said.
Hsieh expressed hope that the government would try every possible means to obtain the list, and that he would suggest President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) grant amnesties to the people on the list in exchange for their confessions.
"Otherwise they would be unwilling to reveal the truth," he told the Taipei Times, "but we would stipulate that they have to surrender the money to the government."
Due to Taiwan's difficult situation in the international community, Hsieh said that "arms purchases are not easy tasks and they [Naval officials] had tried every means possible to procure new weapons."
He said amnesties granted by the president would offer those officials who had received commissions a "chance to repent" and would contribute to solving the case.
"The case is too complicated and there is much to be figured out." Hsieh said.
Hsieh, also an advisor to the Minister of Justice, said he made the trip in the capacity of "a civilian and a volunteer."
Officiating prosecutor of the Lafayette case, Hung Wei-hua (洪威華), made a secret investigative trip to France late last month, but reportedly achieved little due to concerns over jurisdiction.
"Our prosecutors can do little there if the French side does not cooperate." Hsieh said.
So far 28 people, including 13 military officers and 15 arms brokers, have been jailed on charges relating to the military scandal, including bribery and leaking military secrets.
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