Prosecutors yesterday indicted Taichung County Council Speaker Yen Ching-piao (顏清標) on corruption and attempted murder charges, recommending that he be sentenced to 20 years in jail -- just moments before his release order arrived at the detention center where Yen was being held.
Also indicted was the council's Vice Speaker Chang Ching-tang (
Prosecutors acted to bring the indictment and took Yen to court for prosecution just after the Taichung District Court ruled that he could be released on NT$2 million bail.
In the face of the indictment, another judge handling the case ruled late last night to renew Yen and Chang's detention rather than bail them out.
The indictment disappointed Yen's relatives and prompted speculation that prosecutors were deliberately preventing Yen's release.
However, a court spokesman acknowledged that the judge's ruling yesterday morning to allow Yen and Chang be granted bail might be have been unlawful because the previous ruling detaining the two on Feb. 28 was made by a three-judge court, whereas yesterday's ruling was made by one judge.
Learning of the release decision yesterday morning, Yen's family paid the bail money at around 11:45am. The court then issued the release warrant. But prosecutors took Yen and Chang away from the detention house, outside which their relatives were waiting, at around 1:15pm -- 10 minutes before the court's release warrant arrived.
"We are confused. This is odd," Yen's son said.
Prosecutors denied that they had purposely blocked Yen's release.
"We made the indictment in the course of our investigative work," Lee Ching-yi (
He declined to explain the timing of the release order and the indictment. "We didn't know about the court ruling, nor had we received the written ruling," Lee said.
He added that the investigation had come near to completion last week and that prosecutors spent the weekend finishing the nearly 200-page written indictment.
"There's no doubt about it. Everything has been in accordance with due process," he said.
On the prosecutions' recommendations, the Taichung District Court ruled for the detentions of Yen and Chang on Feb. 28 and that of Tsai on March 2. The prosecutors last Friday then lifted a ban on the suspects receiving visitors and correspondence.
During that time, the families of Yen and Chang petitioned the court for the setting of bail.
The court said it approved the petitions for release yesterday because other suspects in the corruption case have already been questioned, and because there was no longer a concern that the detainees would conspire with them.
Regarding the corruption charge, the prosecutors said the speaker, vice speaker and several county councilors had unlawfully spent the council's "public relations budgets" to cover their expenditures on entertainment at hostess bars.
As for the attempted murder charge, the prosecutors have referred to a shooting case in 1996, when people from Yen's office fired shots on a vehicle driving around the office in Shalu Township.
Reports also said that Yen was allegedly using violence to blackmail a stock market-listed company.
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