The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Division (SID) told former Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控) vice chairman Jeffrey Koo Jr (辜仲諒) in Japan that he would not be detained if he made a legal statement against former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) family, Koo Jr’s attorney said yesterday.
As such, Koo’s statement should not be used as evidence in court, Koo Jr’s attorney Fang Po-hsun (方伯勳) told a court hearing yesterday.
He also requested that the court summon Fu Zu-sheng (傅祖聲), the lawyer of the late Chinatrust Financial Holding Co founder and chairman Jeffery Koo Sr (辜濂松), and JPMorgan Chase Bank in Taiwan senior country officer Carl Chien (錢國維) to testify.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
When asked for comment later yesterday, the SID said that no such “give and take” exists and the remarks were tactics by Koo Jr’s attorney.
According to Fang, SID prosecutors went to Japan to urge Koo Jr to return to Taiwan to face trial and “enticed” him by saying that if he returned to Taiwan to make a statement against the Chen family, he would not be detained and could be allowed to visit his children abroad.
As a result, Koo Jr said the proceeds from his company’s purchase of a stake in Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控) were to pay the Chen family, but such remarks were the result of prosecutors’ enticement and not from his own free will, and as such could not be used in court, Fang said.
Koo Jr was sentenced to nine years in jail by the Taipei District Court for his company’s illegal purchase of a stake in Mega Financial Holding Co.
He fled the country in November 2006 during prosecutors’ investigations, staying in Japan, among other places.
He returned to Taiwan in December 2008 to stand trial.
The Taipei District Court ruled that he had violated the Securities Exchange Act (證券交易法) and the Banking Act (銀行法).
The district court said Koo Jr and several company executives had used NT$27.5 billion (US$920 million) to buy a 9.9 percent stake in Mega Financial through a Hong Kong branch of Chinatrust in 2004, without the approval of the Chinatrust board.
That included the illegal purchase of US$390 million in loan notes, convertible into Mega Financial shares, using money earmarked for deposits and then locking in profits from the transaction through insider trading, the court said.
The case is pending in the Taiwan High Court.
Additional reporting by staff writer
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the