The Taipei District Court yesterday ordered Farglory Land Development Co (遠雄建設) chairman Chao Teng-hsiung (趙藤雄) to be detained after the Taiwan High Court on Sunday overturned the district court’s decision to release Chao on NT$5 million (US$166,400) bail in an investigation over allegations that he bribed a local government official in connection with a development project in Taoyuan County.
The district court held a hearing at 8:30pm on Sunday to decide on whether to detain Chao and Farglory manager Wei Chun-hsiung (魏春雄).
The hearing proceeded for four hours and at 12:45am yesterday, the district court judges ruled that Chao and Wei be detained.
Photo: CNA
Chao’s attorneys yesterday filed an appeal against Chao’s detention with the Taiwan High Court.
The district court yesterday said Chao and Wei, both holding top positions in the company, have significant influence on the company’s workers and it could be easy for them to conspire with the company’s staff or destroy evidence.
After Chao was released on bail on Saturday, he called a meeting to discuss the matter with company executives, and ordered staff involved in the case back to the headquarters to discuss the matter with him, suggesting that they might have an intention to conspire to pervert the course of justice, prosecutors said.
The Taipei District Court said Chao and Wei changed their previous statements and made accordant statements in Sunday’s hearing, suggesting that they might have met to discuss their statements.
The district court added that prosecutors during the hearing said that investigators had intercepted a large number of documents the company allegedly attempted to destroy that were transferred to a waste paper treatment factory in Taoyuan County.
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.
Both Tsai and Yeh were taken into custody on Saturday.
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 they are investigating another case of suspected corruption allegedly involving Yeh.
According to the prosecutors, Tsai has also 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 Construction and Planning Agency.
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