Six former high-ranking navy officers involved in the Lafayette frigate scandal yesterday denied the charges against them and claimed that they were simply trying to purchase the best weapons possible for the country.
The six officers appeared before the Taipei District Court (
Prosecutors have completed their investigation and indicted the six former navy officers on charges of forgery and corruption on July 5. The first pre-trial hearing was held on Sept. 12 last year.
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
It took Senior Prosecutor Chang Hsi-huai (張熙懷) approximately an hour to read the indictment against the former navy officers yesterday morning.
According to the indictment, which was based on prosecutors' evidence and interviews with the defendants and witnesses, the navy had inflated the price of the six Lafayette-class frigates purchased 11 years ago and illegally directed NT$10.8 billion to the French manufacturer, Thomson-CSF.
The six indicted former officers are former vice admiral Lei Hsueh-ming (雷學明), former vice admiral Yao Neng-chun (姚能君), former rear admiral Wang Chin-sheng (王琴生), former captain Kang Shih-chun (康世淳), former captain Hsuan Peng-lai (宣蓬萊) and former commander Cheng Chih-po (程志波).
At the hearing, Judge Liao Wen-yu (
Prosecutors suggested a 14-year sentence for Lei, 12 years for Yao and Kang, and 10 years for Wang and Cheng.
Prosecutors did not explain why they did not suggest any sentence for Hsuan, even though he was also indicted.
The defendants told Liao and two other judges, Liu Fang-tsu (劉芳慈) and Lee Jia-hui (李家慧), the same story. The former officers said they did not benefit the French manufacturer or accept any kickbacks, adding that they believe the charges against them are neither fair nor true.
"My colleagues and I tried our best to purchase the best ships for our country; even the Chinese government was trying to interfere and stop us," Lei said.
"Every step we took was authorized by the Navy General Headquarters and the Ministry of National Defense," he said.
"We did not make any unauthorized decisions. The prosecutors' charges were humiliating to us."
Lei indicated that Taiwan's navy had an agreement with the French manufacturer that no kickbacks were allowed.
"In that agreement, both sides agreed to abort the contract if anyone violated the agreement and the violator would be responsible for any losses," he added.
"However prosecutors did not mention this in the indictment."
The defendants' lawyers also complained to the judges that they did not have enough time to review all the details of the indictment and related legal documents since the last hearing.
Joanna Lei (
"Prosecutors spent three to four months reviewing the documents before today's hearing," she said.
"However, since the indictment was submitted to the court, we [the defendants and lawyers] have not finished reviewing prosecutors' charges. We need more time. Defendants' rights should be respected."
Judge Liao Wen-yu said that the court has given both prosecutors and the defense enough time to study the case.
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
RSS