The Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday said urine samples would soon determine whether Greater Kaohsiung Fire Bureau Deputy Director Fang Ho-chin (方和金) took narcotics during a party on Wednesday.
The office said lab test results would require at least a week.
Greater Kaohsiung Information Bureau Director-General Lai Jui-lung (賴瑞隆) said Fang had been removed from his position and reassigned to work as a consultant.
Fang, along with Skylark Travel chairman David Kuo (郭正利) and four other men, were present when a district prosecutor and a military police detail burst into an Ambassador Hotel Kaohsiung room on Wednesday. Several ecstasy pills and ketamine were found in Kuo’s bags, the prosecutor said.
Fang said the disclosure of his presence at the party to the media before the results from the lab came in was premature and “rash,” adding that if the tests came out negative, he would seek reparation from the prosecutors’ office.
Fang said he went to the Ambassador Hotel to chat with long-time friend Kuo and was surprised when the narcotics were found, adding that to prove his innocence he had agreed on the spot to submit to a urine test.
The other men also denied using drugs, saying they were at the hotel to discuss travel plans to Japan.
Fang’s superior, Chen Hung-lung (陳虹龍), said Fang told him that he had just been chatting with his friends, and did not possess or take drugs.
The prosecutors’ office first began paying attention to Kuo after allegations were raised during a separate investigation last year that he and others were involved in drug parties.
The office said it would request that individuals whose urine samples came up positive be placed under observation or sent to a rehabilitation center.
It said it would approach the case as a means to identify the source of the drugs and any accomplices.
The Fire Bureau’s Personnel Office said Fang remained on leave yesterday morning, but that the Greater Kaohsiung City government had ordered him to report to the personnel office about a new position as a consultant.
TRANSLATED BY JAKE CHUNG, STAFF WRITER
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