The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday it planned to summon President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) as a witness in a probe into allegations that Prosecutor-General Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) and the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Division (SID) illegally monitored an opposition lawmaker’s telephone calls and leaked the content of the wiretaps to Ma.
Citing a gag order, Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office spokesman Huang Mo-hsin (黃謀信) said the office could not discuss its investigative process, while local media reported that the office had contacted the Presidential Office to ask when Ma would be available.
When asked for a response, Presidential Office spokesperson Lee Chia-fei (李佳霏) said the Presidential Office respects the judiciary, but would not comment because of the gag order.
At issue is the SID’s press conference on Sept. 6, during which prosecutors said that Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) had been involved in improper lobbying of then-minister of justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫) and Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office Head Prosecutor Chen Shou-huang (陳守煌) at the request of Democratic Progressive Party caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘).
Ker allegedly asked Wang to use his influence to prevent prosecutors from appealing Ker’s June 18 acquittal by the Taiwan High Court in a breach of trust case.
Huang Shih-ming told a Sept. 9 press conference that he had gone to Ma’s residence to report on Wang’s involvement on Aug. 31, which was before the investigation had finished. He told a legislative session on Sept. 25 that Ma had asked him to visit his residence again on Sept. 1 to brief him on the details of the Wang case.
On Monday night, Huang Shih-ming told the Chinese-language Apple Daily that Ma had phoned him after the SID had held its Sept. 6 press conference, raising further questions about Ma’s role in pursuing the case.
The legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee had earlier on Monday passed a motion to have the SID turn its active cases over to regular prosecutors and not open new cases.
Lee yesterday said that Ma had talked to Huang Shih-ming by telephone “several times” after the SID’s Sept. 6 press conference, but did not dictate what the prosecutor-general should do in the case.
Ma simply asked him to clear up doubts that had been raised over the case, Lee said.
Meanwhile, Minister of Justice Lo Ying-shay (羅瑩雪) said Ma telephoning Huang Shih-ming about the case was not evidence that Ma tried to improperly influence the prosecutor-general.
“It depended on what they had said over the phone. Just now, I called several people. Does that mean that I engaged in undue influence?” Lo said in response to a reporter’s question.
‘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
RSS