Swiss authorities on Wednesday returned US$34 million in frozen bank deposits to Taiwan that were believed to be kickbacks connected to the purchase of six Lafayette-class frigates from France in 1991, Swiss officials said.
Officials at the Swiss Department of Justice said the funds belonged to two different account holders but declined to identify them, saying only that one of them was a Taiwanese official.
The officials said that according to Switzerland's Federal Act on International Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters, frozen capital assets can be released to foreign governments if they are related to criminal activities.
The funds were handed over to Taiwanese officials on the condition that legal proceedings against the two people concerned would comply with human rights principles, they said.
The sum is part of a total of US$520 million that Taiwan has sought to recover from a number of frozen Swiss bank accounts belonging to several Taiwanese involved in the scandal, including fugitive arms dealer Andrew Wang (
Proceedings for the retrieval of the remaining funds are ongoing, the officials said.
Kickbacks
Wang was a Taiwanese agent for French arms supplier Thompson-CSF. He fled the country following the death of Navy Captain Yin Ching-feng (尹清楓) under suspicious circumstances in late 1993. It is believed that Yin was poised to blow the whistle on colleagues who had received kickbacks from the Lafayette deal.
Wang has been wanted by Taiwanese prosecutors on a murder charge since September 2000.
Concluding a second-phase investigation into the arms procurement scandal in September last year, a special judicial panel in Taiwan indicted Wang and his wife, Yeh Hsiu-chen (葉秀貞), as well as their four children and the Kuo brothers on charges of collecting kickbacks from the Lafayette deal.
According to the indictment, the Wangs opened more than 60 bank accounts in Europe and Asia to launder US$520 million in illicit gains from the deal.
Taiwan began to seek assistance from the Swiss government in 2001 to retrieve funds frozen in several Swiss banks.
Through a judicial aid agreement with Switzerland, Taiwanese prosecutors acquired a collection of bank files from a Swiss federal judge in November 2005. After nearly 10 months of examination of the files, Taiwan petitioned in September last year for the return of US$520 million from a total of US$730 million frozen in the Swiss banks.
Additional reporting by AP
‘UNPRECEDENTED’: Taiwan’s envoy said that official wording framing Taiwan-China issues as not about unification or independence counters the narrative Beijing wants Use of the phrase “democratic Taiwan” by Germany’s new coalition government in official document shows that Taiwan-China issues are not about “independence” against “unification,” but about democracy against authoritarianism, Representative to Germany Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉) said yesterday. Germany’s Social Democratic Party, Free Democratic Party and the Greens — known as the “traffic light coalition” for their colors — on Wednesday inked a coalition agreement following elections on Sept. 26. The agreement, a blueprint for their governance for the next four years, mentions “Taiwan,” which is unprecedented, showing that the new German government is paying close attention to cross-strait peace and supports Taiwan’s
BIDEN NOD: A China watcher said that the inclusion of Taiwan is notable, as it is the only democratic state on the list that Washington does not officially recognize Minister Without Portfolio Audrey Tang (唐鳳) and Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) are to attend the US-led Summit for Democracy on Dec. 9 and 10, the government said yesterday, after US President Joe Biden announced the list of guests for the virtual event. The US Department of State on Tuesday announced a list of 110 invited participants, including Taiwan, Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Japan and the UK. China and Russia were not invited, and Beijing expressed anger at the decision to invite Taiwan. The summit is to revolve around three key themes: Defending against authoritarianism, addressing and fighting
China said it would punish businesses and political donors with links to individuals supporting Taiwanese independence after it fined Taiwanese conglomerate Far Eastern Group (遠東集團). “Businesses and financial sponsors associated with supporters of Taiwan independence will be penalized according to law,” Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) told reporters on Monday, according to a statement from her agency. Zhu said that backers of independence undermine cross-strait relations and risk instability in the region. Zhu made the remark as she responded to a question about whether the punishment Far Eastern received earlier on Monday was connected to China’s efforts to sanction Taiwanese
‘REMAIN VIGILANT’: The CECC said that the COVID-19 situation in neighboring countries is still severe, so it is not considering easing border controls at this point About 35,500 rooms are expected to be available at quarantine hotels and centralized quarantine facilities for Taiwanese returning to the nation from abroad between Dec. 14 and Feb. 14, up from 29,600 rooms announced previously, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) early this month said 26,000 rooms were available at quarantine hotels and that the CECC planned to make 3,600 rooms available at government quarantine facilities. The center announced the capacity expansion at an inter-ministerial meeting on COVID-19 prevention at the Executive Yuan yesterday morning. The CECC told the meeting that COVID-19 cases
RSS