Taipei prosecutors yesterday put Ching Chi-ju (金紀玖), one of the brokers in the high-profile Papua New Guinea diplomacy scandal, on the wanted list and said he would remain on the list for 30 years.
“The suspect has repeatedly failed to show up for questioning,” Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office spokesman Lin Jinn-tsun (林錦村) said yesterday. “For this, we are issuing a warrant for the arrest of Ching Chi-ju and the effectiveness of the warrant will last 30 years.”
Ching was last seen in the US after allegedly making off with US$30 million, which was wired to a joint bank account set up for him and his associate, Wu Shih-tsai (吳思材), in Singapore in September 2006 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). The money was supposed to be used in the establishment of diplomatic relations with Papua New Guinea.
The National Police Agency said it was informed by intelligence sources that Ching first fled to China, before going to Canada earlier this month. He was found on the US West Coast last week, they said.
Lin said the Taipei Prosecutors’ Office had sought help from the US for Ching’s apprehension and questioning.
Meanwhile, MOFA said yesterday that two officials would be posted to the Philippines and Malaysia as planned, despite their alleged involvement in the scandal.
Donald Lee (李傳通), former director-general of the Department of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and Chang Chiang-sheng (張強生), a close aide of former MOFA minister James Huang (黃志芳), will assume their posts as representative to the Philippines and deputy representative to Malaysia, respectively, as planned, MOFA spokeswoman Phoebe Yeh (葉非比) said.
Their transfers, although announced months ago, are especially sensitive as both Lee and Chang have been questioned by prosecutors about the diplomacy scandal.
In response to whether the postings should be delayed at such a sensitive time, Yeh said: “They will leave to assume their posts as planned, as they are not listed as defendants, and prosecutors have not objected to their deployment. They can fly back to assist with the investigation if needed. That will not be a problem.”
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
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
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
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.
RSS