The Taipei District Court yesterday found former National Security Council (NSC) secretary-general Chiou I-jen (邱義仁) and former deputy foreign minister Michael Kau (高英茂) not guilty of embezzling diplomatic funds during former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) term in office.
The court ruled that Chiou and Kau did not defraud the government of US$500,000 and that the fund was used to ensure that the nation’s designation in an international organization would not be denigrated.
Chiou was indicted on corruption charges for allegedly failing to execute a so-called “An-ya” diplomatic promotion project after asking the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to allocate US$500,000 to the project in 2005.
Photo: CNA
The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Division (SID) had indicted Kau on a similar corruption charge because he gave the ministry a directive to issue traveler’s checks for the amount.
After lengthy investigations, the district court said in its verdict that all of the traveler’s checks in question were cashed abroad on dates when Chiou was in Taiwan.
According to the verdict, then-NSC deputy secretary-general Ko Cheng-heng (柯承亨) did go abroad on the date the traveler’s checks were cashed, but the receipts were signed by the representatives of the beneficiary. Therefore, the court concluded that the traveler’s checks had been delivered to the beneficiary.
Saying that Taiwan’s name in the international organization in question had not been downgraded, the court ruled that the funds were indeed used for the country’s secret diplomatic efforts.
The SID yesterday said prosecutors would consider appealing the case to the Supreme Court after it received the ruling in writing.
Neither Chiou nor Kau were in court for the ruling. Chiou’s lawyer Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said since the case involved secret diplomatic funding, the trial was held behind closed doors.
“Therefore, the public could not know the details of the trial procedures ... but court investigations confirmed that all of the funds in question had been cashed abroad and received by the target beneficiary,” Koo said.
On Chiou’s response to the ruling, Koo said Chiou was an openminded man who could take life’s tribulations in stride.
Chiou was taken into custody on Oct. 31, 2008, and detained for 50 days during the investigation. Koo said Chiou now runs a small fruit and vegetable farm in southern Taiwan.
“He has long laughed off the detention episode,” Koo said.
Commenting on the ruling, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokesperson Chuang Ruei-hsiung (莊瑞雄) said that after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office, his administration had been practicing political persecution through the judicial system by going after pan-green camp politicians.
Now that the court has acquitted the DPP politicians of their charges, it proves that the prosecutors abused their power, Chuang said.
Chuang said that in a democratic country, prosecutors, who are authorized by the state to fight crime, should not show bias when pursuing cases.
Chuang said the public could see that the judiciary only pursues DPP politicians and turns a blind eye to cases involving the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which is why the judiciary’s independence has been questioned since Ma assumed office. Chuang said the DPP would continue to promote judicial human rights as well as judicial independence.
Last week, the Supreme Court cleared Chen of one corruption charge related to embezzling government funds, although he was still sentenced to an additional two years and 10 months on charges of money laundering and forgery.
In a separate case, Chen was cleared of alleged misuse of diplomatic funds during official overseas trips he made as president.
Chen says the legal action against him is a vendetta carried out by the Beijing-friendly KMT government in retaliation for his pro-independence stance while in power.
Additional reporting by AFP
The combined effect of the monsoon, the outer rim of Typhoon Fengshen and a low-pressure system is expected to bring significant rainfall this week to various parts of the nation, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The heaviest rain is expected to occur today and tomorrow, with torrential rain expected in Keelung’s north coast, Yilan and the mountainous regions of Taipei and New Taipei City, the CWA said. Rivers could rise rapidly, and residents should stay away from riverbanks and avoid going to the mountains or engaging in water activities, it said. Scattered showers are expected today in central and
COOPERATION: Taiwan is aligning closely with US strategic objectives on various matters, including China’s rare earths restrictions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan could deal with China’s tightened export controls on rare earth metals by turning to “urban mining,” a researcher said yesterday. Rare earth metals, which are used in semiconductors and other electronic components, could be recovered from industrial or electronic waste to reduce reliance on imports, National Cheng Kung University Department of Resources Engineering professor Lee Cheng-han (李政翰) said. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually rare — their abundance in the Earth’s crust is relatively high, but they are dispersed, making extraction and refining energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, he said, adding that many countries have opted to
FORCED LABOR: A US court listed three Taiwanese and nine firms based in Taiwan in its indictment, with eight of the companies registered at the same address Nine companies registered in Taiwan, as well as three Taiwanese, on Tuesday were named by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) as a result of a US federal court indictment. The indictment unsealed at the federal court in Brooklyn, New York, said that Chen Zhi (陳志), a dual Cambodian-British national, is being indicted for fraud conspiracy, money laundering and overseeing Prince Holding Group’s forced-labor scam camps in Cambodia. At its peak, the company allegedly made US$30 million per day, court documents showed. The US government has seized Chen’s noncustodial wallet, which contains
SUPPLY CHAIN: Taiwan’s advantages in the drone industry include rapid production capacity that is independent of Chinese-made parts, the economic ministry said The Executive Yuan yesterday approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion (US$1.44 billion) into domestic production of uncrewed aerial vehicles over the next six years, bringing Taiwan’s output value to more than NT$40 billion by 2030 and making the nation Asia’s democratic hub for the drone supply chain. The proposed budget has NT$33.8 billion in new allocations and NT$10.43 billion in existing funds, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. Under the new development program, the public sector would purchase nearly 100,000 drones, of which 50,898 would be for civil and government use, while 48,750 would be for national defense, it said. The Ministry of
RSS