Keelung City Council Speaker Huang Ching-tai (黃景泰) was released on bail yesterday after prosecutors asked on Wednesday that he be detained on suspicion of influence peddling in a number of construction projects.
The prosecution on Wednesday asked the Keelung District Court to grant its request that Huang be detained. The request was rejected yesterday and Huang was released on NT$1.2 million (US$40,000) bail, but banned from traveling overseas.
The city council speaker was interrogated on suspicion of his involvement in pressuring Keelung City Government officials on construction projects.
Photo: Wu Sheng-ju, Taipei Times
The prosecutors had found stashes of cash in New Taiwan dollar and Chinese Renminbi with an estimated total value of about NT$5 million in Huang’s office on Tuesday.
The investigation team had immediately called for Huang’s financial records, suspecting the wads of cash to have been bribes, but Huang claimed that the money is his election campaign fund.
Huang is the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) candidate for the year-end Keelung mayoral election.
KMT spokesperson Charles Chen (陳以信) said yesterday morning that since Huang is currently not in detention, which would have cost Huang his KMT party membership and with it his candidacy, “there is no question about using party discipline at this stage.”
However, the KMT might still lose its prospective Keelung mayoral aspirant, as the prosecutors lodged an appeal yesterday immediately after the court granted Huang bail.
The party said it would take measures to adjust to later developments in the case. If Huang is taken into custody, measures could include him being subjected to party discipline or his party membership being revoked, the party launching another primary or enlisting other possible candidates.
Former Presidential Office deputy secretary-general Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) has been rumored to be one of the possible replacements.
Lo has caught the media’s attention by saying on Facebook, writing about the matter, that “there is no such thing as a definite candidate.” However, he declined to be specific on whether this “definite candidate” refers to Huang or himself.
While Charles Chen refused to comment on the expected impact or potential harm to the KMT’s election effort incurred by Huang’s case, KMT Legislator Liao Kuo-tung (廖國棟) was explicit in expressing his worries.
“The prospects are not looking good. So the party would definitely deal with it, rather than leaving decisions to [Huang’s] personal will and causing further damage to the party,” Liao said.
TPP RALLY: The clashes occurred near the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Saturday at a rally to mark the anniversary of a raid on former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je People who clashed with police at a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally in Taipei on Saturday would be referred to prosecutors for investigation, said the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the National Police Agency. Taipei police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by “disorderly” demonstrators, as well as contraventions of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. It added that amid the “severe pushing and jostling” by some demonstrators, eight police officers were injured, including one who was sent to hospital after losing consciousness, allegedly due to heat stroke. The Taipei
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
The US has revoked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) authorization to freely ship essential gear to its main Chinese chipmaking base, potentially curtailing its production capabilities at that older-generation facility. American officials recently informed TSMC of their decision to end the Taiwanese chipmaker’s so-called validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing site. The action mirrors steps the US took to revoke VEU designations for China facilities owned by Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The waivers are set to expire in about four months. “TSMC has received notification from the US Government that our VEU authorization for TSMC Nanjing
RSS