Yunlin County Council Speaker Chen Ching-hsiu (
Chen was charged for hosting a banquet at a restaurant in Yunlin on the evening of Nov. 5 to drum up support for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative candidate Chang Shuo-wen (
The event, according to Yunlin prosecutors, was in obvious violation of statutes of the Election and Recall Law.
The prosecutors said they had gathered solid evidence and witnesses before bringing the indictment. They are seeking a prison sentence of one-and-a-half years for Chen.
Twelve other people, including Chen's secretary, Hsieh Kun-chou (
About 150 people were entertained at the banquet, the pro-secutors said, adding that 17 of them were questioned on the matter, with eight admitting to having attended the dinner for free.
Meanwhile, KMT legislative caucus whip Huang Teh-fu (黃德福) yesterday accused Premier Yu Shyi-kun of interfering with the judicial process. Yu had earlier suggested that the Public Prosecutors Office had lost its direction in its investigation of DPP legislative nominee Lee Chun-yi (李俊毅) for vote-buying.
Yu has also been accused of "passing judgement" on KMT legislators who currently face investigation on vote-buying charges.
Huang said that Yu had illegally exceeded his authority and that he should take over the job of public prosecutor-general if he wanted to personally direct the campaign against vote buying.
KMT Legislator Huang Chao-shun (
He pointed to the example of KMT legislative nominee Hsiao Jin-lan (
Huang said that charges against independents Ho Jin-sung (何金松) and Tsai Hao (蔡豪) have been brought just prior to the election, after an investigation lasting three years. Huang questioned the timing of the charges and asked what sort of investigation into vote-buying required three years to complete.
In a related incident in Tainan, calls by Yu protesting the innocence of Li Tsao (李遭) on vote-buying charges led the Tainan District prosecutor to accuse the premier of "passing judgement before the case was brought to trial."
Yu denied this, saying that if prosecutors had solid evidence of vote-buying they should bring it forward immediately, but if there was any uncertainty, they should not reveal their suspicions.
DPP spokesman Chen Chi-mai (
Authorities have detained three former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TMSC, 台積電) employees on suspicion of compromising classified technology used in making 2-nanometer chips, the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. Prosecutors are holding a former TSMC engineer surnamed Chen (陳) and two recently sacked TSMC engineers, including one person surnamed Wu (吳) in detention with restricted communication, following an investigation launched on July 25, a statement said. The announcement came a day after Nikkei Asia reported on the technology theft in an exclusive story, saying TSMC had fired two workers for contravening data rules on advanced chipmaking technology. Two-nanometer wafers are the most
NEW GEAR: On top of the new Tien Kung IV air defense missiles, the military is expected to place orders for a new combat vehicle next year for delivery in 2028 Mass production of Tien Kung IV (Sky Bow IV) missiles is expected to start next year, with plans to order 122 pods, the Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) latest list of regulated military material showed. The document said that the armed forces would obtain 46 pods of the air defense missiles next year and 76 pods the year after that. The Tien Kung IV is designed to intercept cruise missiles and ballistic missiles to an altitude of 70km, compared with the 60km maximum altitude achieved by the Missile Segment Enhancement variant of PAC-3 systems. A defense source said yesterday that the number of
A bipartisan group of US representatives have introduced a draft US-Taiwan Defense Innovation Partnership bill, aimed at accelerating defense technology collaboration between Taiwan and the US in response to ongoing aggression by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The bill was introduced by US representatives Zach Nunn and Jill Tokuda, with US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party Chairman John Moolenaar and US Representative Ashley Hinson joining as original cosponsors, a news release issued by Tokuda’s office on Thursday said. The draft bill “directs the US Department of Defense to work directly with Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense through their respective
Tsunami waves were possible in three areas of Kamchatka in Russia’s Far East, the Russian Ministry for Emergency Services said yesterday after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the nearby Kuril Islands. “The expected wave heights are low, but you must still move away from the shore,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app, after the latest seismic activity in the area. However, the Pacific Tsunami Warning System in Hawaii said there was no tsunami warning after the quake. The Russian tsunami alert was later canceled. Overnight, the Krasheninnikov volcano in Kamchatka erupted for the first time in 600 years, Russia’s RIA