Former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) mother-in-law, Wu Wang Hsia (吳王霞), appeared at the Taipei District Court yesterday to testify in the former first family’s money laundering case.
The 83-year-old said she did not remember most of the events she was asked about.
Wu Wang Hsia, the mother of former first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍), answered “I forget” to many of the questions asked by the judge and prosecutors.
PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
She told Presiding Judge Tsai Shou-hsun (蔡守訓): “When you get to my age, you will know [why I forget].”
Wu Wang Hsia and the former president did not speak to each other in court and barely made eye contact. Wu Wang Hsia kept her eyes on her son-in-law as she took her seat in the courtroom yesterday afternoon, but Chen did not acknowledge her until later, when he nodded to her.
When prosecutors asked Wu Wang Hsia whether she lent her Changhwa Bank account to her daughter Wu Shu-jen for her daughter’s use, Wu Wang Hsia answered: “Whoever is the name on the bank account, that is the person who uses the account.”
She denied lending the bank account to her daughter and said she did not care too much about money.
When asked about the former president, Wu Wang Hsia said Chen is “well-behaved” and a “country kid” who is not too interested in money. She said because her daughter is more aggressive, Chen usually complied with her on most matters.
At previous hearings, when prosecutors requested that the court call Wu Wang Hsia to testify, Chen had pleaded with the judge not to call her as a witness. Chen had told the court his mother-in-law was very old and starting to show signs of dementia, so she would not be able to offer any useful information to the court.
However, Tsai, who has the authority to decide whether to call certain witnesses, rejected Chen’s pleas and called Wu Wang Hsia.
Aside from Wu Wang Hsia, Tsai also summoned former presidential adviser Wu Li-pei (吳澧培) as a witness yesterday.
Asked about certain transfers of money, Wu Li-pei said the former president told him in February last year as he was about to leave office that he hoped to continue to improve Taiwan’s foreign relations.
He said Chen was told by American Institute in Taiwan director Stephen Young that after he ended his presidency, he would not encounter any problems leaving the country to go to the US.
Wu Li-pei said Chen told him he had a fund of US$2 million from donations and would wire the money to his four accounts in the US.
The money was transferred into four bank accounts to avoid arousing suspicion because it was part of a classified foreign diplomacy project, he said.
The former adviser said he did not think the transfers were part of any money-laundering scheme, because he would never have thought Chen would be involved in such behavior and believed even if he wanted to launder money, such transfers would be have been done by people very close to the former president and that he was not one of them.
Meanwhile, appearing at the district court in a separate trial, former minister of Justice Morley Shih (施茂林) denied ever discussing the former president’s case during a secret meeting at the Presidential Office.
When former Presidential Office director Lin Teh-hsun (林德訓) was called to the stand, he told the court that in a meeting at the Presidential Office, senior officials in the judicial system had instructed that the presidential “state affairs fund” be classified.
Lin did not identify who the officials were.
When approached by reporters, Shih, who had been in office during the Chen administration, denied any knowledge of the meeting.
“I know nothing [about any meeting], because I wasn’t there,” Shih said.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
IN FULL SWING: Recall drives against lawmakers in Hualien, Taoyuan and Hsinchu have reached the second-stage threshold, the campaigners said Campaigners in a recall petition against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) in Taichung yesterday said their signature target is within sight, and that they need a big push to collect about 500 more signatures from locals to reach the second-stage threshold. Recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) are also close to the 10 percent threshold, and campaigners are mounting a final push this week. They need about 800 signatures against Chiang and about 2,000 against Yang. Campaigners seeking to recall Lo said they had reached the threshold figure over the
RSS