Kaohsiung District Court yesterday cleared former Presidential Office deputy secretary-general Chen Che-nan (陳哲男) of corruption relating to the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp (KRTC) scandal.
"Prosecutors had no way to prove that the hospitality Chen Che-nan received was related to his position. As a result, we decided to drop all the charges against him," said presiding Judge Tseng Yi-cheng (曾逸成), when reading the verdict in court yesterday.
Prosecutors alleged that Chen helped Huapan Co, the firm in charge of hiring and managing Thai laborers working on Kaohsiung's MRT construction project, in return for vacations.
Kaohsiung prosecutors accused Chen of accepting all-expense paid trips to Thailand, Vietnam and South Korea, as well as "entertainment" paid for by the firm in return for his help in winning contracts for the MRT project.
The case came to light after Thai workers rioted on Aug. 21, 2005 in protest over working conditions.
On Nov. 21, 2005, Kaohsiung Prosecutor Ho Chin-tung (
Huapan general manager Yen Shih-hua (嚴世華) and his wife Wang Tsai-pi (王彩碧) were sentenced to 42 months and four years in jail respectively for receiving kickbacks from Thai workers and several Thai labor brokerages.
After the verdict, Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office Spokesman Chung Chung-hsiao (鍾忠孝) said that he was not surprised by the outcome.
"Actually, before we even submitted the case to the court, I had a strong feeling that our evidence might not be sufficient to persuade the judges," Chung said.
Prosecutors would meet to discuss whether to appeal after they had read the verdict, he said.
Meanwhile, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Hsu Shao-ping (
She said Chen was also allegedly involved in other cases, and urged prosecutors to conduct thorough investigations into them.
KMT Legislator Joanna Lei (雷倩), who was also at the conference, said the ruling was surprising because prosecutors had submitted "clear evidence" against Chen.
Lei said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh's campaign team should avoiding gloating because the verdict did not necessarily clear Hsieh of his alleged involvement in cases related to the KRTC scandal.
When asked for comment, DPP caucus deputy secretary-general Wang Shu-hui (
Wang said the evidence against Chen was "weak," adding that prosecutors had only sought a severe punishment because Chen was former deputy secretary-general of the Presidential Office.
Additional reporting Flora Wang
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have declared they survived recall votes to remove them from office today, although official results are still pending as the vote counting continues. Although final tallies from the Central Election Commission (CEC) are still pending, preliminary results indicate that the recall campaigns against all seven KMT lawmakers have fallen short. As of 6:10 pm, Taichung Legislators Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) and Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔), Hsinchu County Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘), Nantou County Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and New Taipei City Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) had all announced they
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday visited Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), as the chipmaker prepares for volume production of Nvidia’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips. It was Huang’s third trip to Taiwan this year, indicating that Nvidia’s supply chain is deeply connected to Taiwan. Its partners also include packager Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) and server makers Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達). “My main purpose is to visit TSMC,” Huang said yesterday. “As you know, we have next-generation architecture called Rubin. Rubin is very advanced. We have now taped out six brand new
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
RSS