The Taiwan High Court yesterday rejected the appeal of Chao Chien-ming (
Chao Chien-ming's sentence was lengthened by 12 months to seven years imprisonment. Chao Yu-chu received a 14-month addition to his sentence, meaning he must now serve nine years and six months.
The Chaos were appealing their convictions last December by the Taipei District Court in connection with the Taiwan Development Corp (TDC) scandal and other deals.
PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES
Chao Chien-ming's defense attorney Chen Feng-fu (
Both the Chaos and prosecutors had appealed the District Court's decision to the Taiwan High Court. The prosecutors appealed because they believed the defendants had made more illegal profits than the district court had ruled on and should therefore receive heavier sentences.
Taiwan High Court spokesman Wen Yao-yuan (
The High Court also decided that all the money the Chous made through insider trading should be accounted for. Wen said the court decided that the pair should be responsible for the money they made illegally as well as the money their accomplices made.
While the district court had decided that Chao and his father had made a total of NT$4.27 million illegally, the High Court decided that the Chaos and two codefendants, former Taiwan Development Corp chairman Su Teh-jien (蘇德建) and businessman Yu Shih-yi (游世一), had made more than NT$100 million through insider trading of TDC shares, Wen said.
He said the Securities Transaction Law (證券交易法) states that a person should receive a longer sentence if he or she made more than NT$100 million in an illegal deal.
The elder Chao's sentence also included his violation for embezzlement of public funds.
He embezzled NT$11 million from Eslite Books chairman Robert Wu (吳清友), who had deposited the sum into one of Chao Yu-chu's bank accounts as a donation to the Taiwan Table Tennis Association, which the senior Chao headed.
Su was sentenced to seven years and six months in jail while Yu was sentenced to seven years and two months in jail. Yu was also fined NT$60 million.
The TDC scandal revolved around two 2005 dinners at a Japanese restaurant in Taipei.
Su, Chang Hwa Commercial Bank chairman Chang Po-shin (張伯欣), bank president Chen Chen-chao (陳辰昭), Yu and Chao Chien-ming were all at the dinners.
It is believed that confidential information about TDC was discussed on both occasions.
First daughter Chen Hsing-yu (
She told reporters camped outside her office that she respected the judiciary and would file an appeal for her husband.
sorry
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Wei-cher (
Huang was referring to Chao Chien-ming's volunteer work as an orthopedist at Tainan's Sin Lau Hospital since March 1.
Chao Chien-ming began working there after his application to resume his job at National Taiwan University Hospital's orthopedics department was rejected.
People First Party Legislator Liu Wen-hsiung (
"The ruling party should come up with concrete measures to salvage the confidence of the public in the government," Liu said.
The first family bears a moral responsibility ... President Chen should advise Chao Chien-ming against appealing further," Liu said.
new trial?
Liu said the chances of another trial clearing Chao Chien-ming were low and an appeal would just be a waste of judicial resources.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Kuo Su-chun (郭素春) said the heavier sentences meant that Chao Chien-ming had been proved guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Kuo hailed yesterday's ruling, saying that judges handling the first lady's case should confront the mighty as the judges in this case had done.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan, Flora Wang
and Ko Shu-ling
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has