Taipei Prosecutor Hou Kuan-jen (
"I was born to defend justice," Huo told reporters at the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors' Office's Special Investigation Section. "[Ma and Song] humiliated me and I think I deserve an apology from them."
"If they do not offer an apology, I will consider hiring a lawyer to file a suit against them," Hou added.
Ma and Song have also alleged that Hou was biased and asked leading questions when interviewing witness Wu Li-ju (
Hou was one of the lead prosecutors in Ma's corruption case, in which Ma was accused of misappropriating NT$11 million (US$333,000) from his special mayoral allowance during his eight-year tenure as Taipei mayor.
The court on Tuesday decided that special allowances do not constitute public funds, and hence found Ma not guilty.
Prosecutors are still deciding whether or not to appeal the verdict.
Ma said yesterday that he was the victim and there was nothing for him to apologize about.
"Apologize? It's strange, because I am the victim here," Ma said in Tainan County, adding that the court's decision to make the recording of the testimony public was the right one.
This had allowed the public to hear the truth, he said.
When asked if he wanted Hou to apologize to him for distorting the testimony, Ma said he wanted nothing but for the court to clear his name.
In related news, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers condemned the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for trying to pressure Hou not to appeal Ma's case.
The DPP lawmakers were referring to a visit made by a group of KMT lawmakers to State Public Prosecutor-General Chen Tsung-ming (
KMT caucus whip Tseng Yuan-chuan (
The KMT lawmakers also demanded that Chen exclude Hou from participating in the discussion on whether to appeal Ma's case.
Chen told reporters that Hou shouldn't be kept out of the discussion because he was one of the lead prosecutors on the case. He added that Hou should be given a chance to respond to the accusations made by Ma and Song.
DPP Legislator Hsieh Hsin-ni (
"The KMT should give prosecutors more room to consider wether to appeal the case or not," DPP Legislator Kao Chien-chih (
The KMT lawmakers plan to visit Control Yuan Secretary-General Fan Kuang-chun (范光群) this morning to discuss the special allowance issue.
Additonal reporting by Mo Yan-chih
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS