The Taiwan High Court yesterday overturned a district court’s decision to release Farglory Land Development Co (遠雄建設) chairman Chao Teng-hsiung (趙藤雄) on bail, and ordered a new bail hearing to decide on whether to detain Chao in the investigation of allegations that he bribed a Taoyuan County official in connection with a development project.
The judges summoned Chao and Farglory manager Wei Chun-hsiung (魏春雄) to attend a hearing at 8:30pm and the hearing was still on going as press time last night.
The hearing followed the High Court’s decision earlier yesterday which, in response to an appeal filed by prosecutors, sent the matter back to the Taipei District Court, saying the lower court’s decision on Saturday to release Chao and Wei on bail was not well-grounded.
The high court said that the sum of NT$5 million (US$166,400) set as bail for Chao and NT$1 million for Wei were not enough to prevent them from fleeing the country.
The high court added that Chao called a meeting to discuss the matter with his executives after being released on bail on Saturday, suggesting that they might have an intention to conspire to pervert the course of justice.
Chao is being investigated on allegations of paying a bribe of NT$16 million, via an intermediary, Tsai Jen-hui (蔡仁惠), a retired professor, to then-Taoyuan County deputy commissioner Yeh Shih-wen (葉世文) to win a local government building contract.
Yeh previously served as director-general of the Construction and Planning Agency (CPA)
In the investigation, Tsai and Yeh — who was dismissed from his position as Taoyuan county deputy commissioner after prosecutors on Friday raided his office and residence as part of an investigation into the possible corruption — were both taken into custody on Saturday.
In the Friday morning raids, investigators seized NT$17 million in cash from Yeh’s home in Taipei and about NT$1.12 million in cash from his office in the county government.
Tsai allegedly picked up the money from a Farglory office in Taipei under instruction from Chao and Wei, investigators said.
Farglory secured the affordable housing project in Bade (八德) with a bid of NT$1.3 billion and on May 8 signed a contract with the county government.
Prosecutors said that they are investigating another case of suspected corruption allegedly involving Yeh.
Investigators said that during questioning, Tsai accused Chao of bribing Yeh to obtain another government housing project in New Taipei City’s Linkou (林口) in 2012, when Yeh was director-general of the Ministry of the Interior’s CPA.
Meanwhile, in response to the alleged bribery case, Minister of the Interior Chen Wen-jen (陳威人) said yesterday that the ministry would launch a probe into development projects handled by Yeh during his term as the head of the CPA.
“During Yeh’s term as the CPA’s director-general, he has handled several projects, including the construction of social housing complexes in Fujhou (浮洲) region and in Banciao (板橋) and Linkou districts in New Taipei City,” Chen said. “I have ordered a probe into those projects and will not hesitate to refer the case to the judiciary if anything illegal is discovered.”
Amber Shyu (徐玉紅), a resident of the Linkou project site who has been resisting forced eviction for nearly a decade, said she hopes investigators will work independently to dig out unlawful conduct involved in the project, so that the people can live happily and peacefully in their homes.
“If there are no greedy officials, corporations will not be able to do anything they want using money, and there would not be so many innocent people forced out of their homes and villages wiped out from the map,” she said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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