The Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday turned down a request to get involved in the investigation into former Mainland Affairs Council deputy minister Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) on allegations of treason.
The director of the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau, Chen Rong-fu (陳榮富), and three other bureau officials took the material that the bureau had gathered so far in its probe into Chang’s actions to the prosecutors’ office yesterday afternoon.
Chen spent an hour discussing the case with office Director-General Wang Tian-sheng (王添勝) and prosecutors Kuo Wen-tong (郭文東), Tseng Chao-kai (曾昭愷) and Yu Li-chen (余麗貞).
Photo: Chang Wen-chuan, Taipei Times
However, the prosecutors’ office declined to take over the investigation, citing a lack of evidence that would bring the case under the office’s remit.
Kuo said the office asked the bureau to gather more evidence before sending its case to it for review.
Chang is being investigated for allegedly violating the National Security Information Protection Act (國家安全機密保護法) by divulging “confidential” information on at least two separate instances.
Under the act, information is given three designations: top secret, secret and confidential.
“Confidential” is applied to information that would cause identifiable damage to national security.
However, there is no indication that the allegations against Chang involve either the unintentional divulging of confidential information or a deliberate act.
Senior prosecutors said the fact that the bureau took the case directly to the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office and not a local prosecutors’ office shows that the case touched on national security issues.
Such violations may be tied into violation of Article 109 of the Criminal Code, which could lead to a prison sentence of one year to seven years, senior prosecutors said.
Additional reporting by CNA
‘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
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
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
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS