The Taipei District Court yesterday found former National Security Bureau chief accountant Hsu Ping-chiang (
"If the prosecutor handling the case decides to file for an appeal and take the case to the Taiwan High Court, a second ruling is possible," district court spokesman Huang Jiunn-ming (
Yesterday's verdict received much public attention as several high-profile government officials were involved in the case.
The scandal began with the disappearance in 1994 of US$4.5 million from a secret fund of US$10.58 million for securing diplomatic relations with South Africa. According to prosecutors, the bureau paid the money to South Africa on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in May 1994.
On April 4, 1999, the ministry returned a total of US$10.7 million, including interest, to the bureau. Hsu allegedly asked former chief cashier Liu Kuan-chun (
Liu is himself suspected of embezzling more than NT$192 million (US$5.65 million) from that figure. According to the Bureau of Investigation, he left the country on Sept. 3, 2000, for Shanghai.
He reappeared in Bangkok in January 2002 and then went to North America. Liu is still on the run.
On Nov. 17 last year, the Taipei Prosecutor's Office char-ged Hsu and Liu with corruption and asked the court for a sentence of 15 years for Hsu and 12 years for Liu.
Former China Development Holding Corp chairman Liu Tai-ying (劉泰英), who was president of the Taiwan Research Institute at the time, allegedly wired money to Ruentex Corp chairman Yin Yen-liang's (尹衍樑) bank accounts in the US and Singapore. Yin then allegedly wired the money to one of Ruentex's bank accounts in Taiwan, after which he "donated" US$3 million of it to the Taiwan Research Institute.
On April 14, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and Hsu went head-to-head during a closed-door hearing at the Taipei District Court over the secret fund.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
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