Lawyers of a businesswoman detained for the Zanadau affair yesterday accused Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) of taking bribes in exchange for helping remove obstacles to the privatization of a state-run enterprise in 1998.
Three attorneys hired by key Zanadau Development Corp shareholder Su Hui-chen (
Insisting he is innocent, the speaker issued a stern statement right after to dismiss the charges against him as groundless.
The scandal surfaced last September when Su said former KMT treasurer Liu Tai-ying (劉泰英) and his broker Lee Ming-che (李明哲) cheated her out of NT$1 billion in exchange for a promise to secure bank loans 10 times the amount several years ago.
"Lee told Su he handed NT$20 billion to Wang in an attempt to placate lawmakers who opposed the privatization plan of Taiwan Fertilizer Co," Su's lawyer Lee Sheng-hsiung (
Su, who was detained on New Year's Eve by Kaohsiung prosecutors on charges of financial irregularities, was turned over to their Taipei counterparts on Jan. 17 for further interrogation.
Investigators suspect she unfairly inflated the land prices of the Zanadau project, an ill-fated plan to build a giant shopping mall in Kaohsiung County.
Her lawyers criticized Su's detention as unnecessary, saying Kaohsiung investigators apparently have wrapped up their probe and that their client no longer poses any threat of tainting the evidence.
"Taipei prosecutors have already interviewed Su several times and found no need to lock her up" Lee Sheng-hsiung said. "I don't see why they overturned their former ruling. The reversal reeked of political intervention."
The lawyer attributed Su's detention to a cross-party plot to keep her quiet because she knows of many shoddy deals involving government officials.
"She told me investigators refused to record her testimony against certain political heavyweights," Lee Sheng-hsiung said. He declined to name anyone except the legislative speaker, who the lawyer said should give a detailed account of the controversy surrounding Taifertilizer.
Back in 1998, Su reportedly paid a legislative panel an unspecified sum of money via Lee Ming-che to defuse their resistance to Taifertilizer's privatization plan. After holding three meetings, the cross-party committee ruled in favor of the privatization, a decision that allowed Taifertilizer to become a Zanadau shareholder later.
Lee Sheng-hsiung said Wang's intervention made then-financially troubled Dahsin Securities House, owned by former independent lawmaker Lo Fu-cho (
"I don't know whether Wang is guilty of any crime," he said. "It is up to the investigators to find out."
Dieter Wu (吳旭洲), another lawyer of Su's, said he found it ridiculous for prosecutors to make a defendant of his client, who took the initiative to expose the scandal and has helped the probe the best she can.
Later in the day, the legislative speaker denied any involvement in the Zanadau affair or any monetary ties with Lee Ming-che, who has since October been in custody for alleged financial fraud.
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