KMT sues premier for defamation

Furious over Premier Su Tseng-chang's (蘇貞昌) comparison of its asset sale to the Rebar Asia Pacific Group (力霸亞太企業集團) scandal, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday filed a defamation lawsuit against the premier.

Su had accused the KMT of profiting from the sale of its shares in the Central Motion Picture Co (CMPC) to a private group last year, condemning it for embezzling national property and undermining public welfare, much as the Rebar scandal had.

Addressing the KMT asset issue during a weekly Cabinet meeting, Su asked the Ministry of Justice to investigate any irregularity in the CMPC sale.

The KMT was quick to deny Su's allegations and later filed a lawsuit against him with the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office.

"It's a harsh accusation. Unlike the Rebar scandal, the contract for the sale of CMPC was signed legally under the supervision of lawyers," KMT administration and management committee director-general Chang Che-shen (張哲琛) told a press conference at KMT headquarters.

The KMT sold the CMPC, the Broadcasting Corp of China (BCC, 中廣) and China Television Co to the China Times Group's subsidiary, Jungli Investment Co (榮麗投資公司), in 2005 for NT$9.3 billion (US$280.7 million) and helped the company sell CMPC last year to Gou Tai-chiang (郭台強), the brother of Hon Hai Precision Industrial Co (鴻海科技) chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘).

The sale, however, generated more finger pointing at the KMT, as the Ministry of Finance criticized the CMPC for cutting the number of director seats to five and the supervisory seats to one, resulting in government shareholders losing all their representation on the new board.

Former CMPC vice president Chuang Wan-chun (莊婉均) accused KMT Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元), the president of CMPC, of stealing her shares in the corporation.

Chang said that the KMT had nothing to do with the disputes, and added that the KMT-run Central Investment Holding Co (中央投資公司) was only a small shareholder, holding just 8 percent of CMPC shares.

Cabinet Spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) last night said the KMT should explain its sale of CMPC instead of filing the suit.