Former Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) deputy minister Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) was yesterday summoned for questioning on suspicion of leaking state secrets related to cross-strait negotiations with China, while the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau approved a search warrant for Chang’s residence in Taipei’s Dazhi District (大直) and six other locations.
Taipei prosecutors also questioned three other people, one of whom was reportedly Chang’s assistant, Chen Hung-yi (陳宏義).
They were questioned as witnesses.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
The questioning was still ongoing at press time last night.
Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office spokesman Huang Mo-hsin (黃謀信) refused to reveal the identities of the three witnesses.
The office had summoned the council’s economic affairs department director Lee Li-jane (李麗珍), planning department director Hu Ai-ling (胡愛玲) and politics and legal affairs department director Yeh Ning (葉寧) on Tuesday night for questioning after it found discrepancies in some of the available data.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Prosecutors yesterday said that Chang has been restricted from leaving the country since Friday last week, adding that the case has been reclassified from code Ta (他) to code Zhen (偵).
According to legal practice, filing cases under code Ta indicates that prosecutors consider the person’s conduct to be suspect, but lack sufficient evidence to prove that the person is a criminal. Code Zhen indicates that legal grounds for suspicion have been established, but not enough to lay charges.
Sources also said that the national security investigators had discovered Chang leaking secrets three years ago, adding that the Mainland Affairs Council’s proof came from a wiretap on Chang.
If allegations of leaking secrets are substantiated, the district prosecutors’ office would continue the investigation if the secrets did not involve national security, the sources said, but the case would be forwarded to the Taiwan High Court if the secrets are confirmed to be linked to national security.
Separately, on questions of whether the national security system had legally obtained permission to wiretap Chang, Taiwan High Court spokesman Tsai Chung-tun (蔡炯燉) said the case had been deemed top secret and only the judge who approved the wiretap knew about the matter.
Tsai added that the court could not offer any other answer even if the queries came from the Control Yuan or the Legislative Yuan.
The concern over illegal wiretapping stemmed from the Special Investigation Division’s alleged wiretapping of the Legislative Yuan switchboard and multiple legislators during what was deemed a political scheme to oust Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) from his post in September last year by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
Meanwhile, Huang said Chang has refused to submit to questioning by the Investigation Bureau and stated he would answer only to the district prosecutors’ office, while the other three witnesses were making their statements at the bureau.
The office does not rule out filing a request to detain Chang, Huang said.
Additional reporting by Lin Ching-chuan, Chien Li-chung, Yang Kuo-wen and Peng Hsien-chun
‘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