Hsieh slams previous prosecutor

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said yesterday that he would not promise to withdraw from the presidential race if he were indicted over illegal political donations because the Kaohsiung prosecutor formerly in charge of the investigation was not impartial.

"I cannot bet my political career on the prosecutor's impartiality because I cannot guarantee that Prosecutor Lo [Chien-hsun (羅建勛)] was fair," Hsieh said in Taitung.

"Therefore, it is meaningless to [promise] I would withdraw from the presidential election [if indicted] now," he said.

Hsieh had previously said he would drop out of the race if he were indicted in connection with an investigation into his special mayoral allowance, but he had not made a similar promise concerning the political donation case.

Last year Lo alleged that Hsieh had accepted large political donations from a group of construction companies in 2005 when he was Kaohsiung mayor.

Lo also said that companies that made donations to Hsieh during the bidding for Kaohsiung's MRT construction project all later received MRT contracts.

The May 2 edition of the Chinese-language Next Magazine included a photograph of an official document signed and sent by Lo to the Ministry of Justice's Bureau of Investigation on April 3, in which he said he believed Hsieh should be indicted on corruption charges.

The document was later confirmed to be genuine, but the source of the leak has not been identified.

Facing criticism from the DPP caucus, the ministry said Lo's wording in the document was "inappropriate" and "flawed."

Although Lo has defended his actions and said that he does not have any political affiliation and was not behind the leak, several DPP members have said he harbors a "deep-blue ideology."

Hsieh told reporters yesterday that the magazine story showed that "Lo Chien-hsun was biased" against him.

When asked what he would do if he were found guilty in the first trial of the political donation case, Hsieh said he "would feel too disgraced to continue running in the election."

Hsieh met Prosecutor Chou Chih-jung (周志榮) of the Supreme Court Prosecutors Office's Special Investigation Section (SIS) at Chou's office on Friday morning to discuss the political donation case.

SIS spokesman Chen Yun-nan (陳雲南) said prosecutors had not summoned Hsieh as either a "witness" or "defendant" in the case.

Hsieh's campaign office defended their man on Friday and Saturday, saying that the donations in question were purely election donations. The office also said that since the donations were made in 2002 they could not be considered illegal because the Political Donation Act (政治獻金法) did not take effect until 2004.