Keelung prosecutors last night again requested permission to detain Keelung City Council Speaker Huang Ching-tai (黃景泰) after prosecutors searched Huang’s residence and mayoral election campaign office yesterday morning and took him to the local office of the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau.
The prosecutors requested that Huang be held incommunicado on suspicion of violating the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例) by accepting bribes and withdrawing public funds without authorization and an intent to profit.
Keelung District Prosecutor Chou Chi-yung (周啟勇) said the grounds for asking that Huang be detained were suspicions of irregularities in his performance of his official duties and corruption in dealing with a street expansion project for Yuemei Road (月眉路) involving Unison Developing Co (國統開發集團), of witness collusion and destroying evidence.
Photo: Wu Cheng-feng Taipei Times
Chou said Huang had colluded with witnesses to give false testimony and destroyed evidence while he was out on bail on another charge.
The Keelung District Court released Huang on NT$1.2 million (US$40,000) bail on June 19 after prosecutors asked on Wednesday that he be detained on suspicion of influence peddling in a number of construction projects. He was banned from leaving the country.
Chou said yesterday’s searches by prosecutors and bureau agents was aimed at securing evidence that Huang falsified accounts to embezzle money from the Keelung City Council’s public fund. The prosecutor said the searches turned up insurance policies and Prada and Louis Vuitton designer bags.
Yesterday was the fourth time in three months that prosecutors have sought to have Huang detained. It was also one day after Huang registered to run for Keelung mayor in the Nov. 29 elections as an independent candidate, declaring that he had quit the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
The KMT withdrew its support for Huang as a mayoral candidate on July 9, after he came under investigation for corruption, and he faces expulsion from the party.
It has nominated former National Immigration Agency director-general Hsieh Li-kung (謝立功) to run instead.
Huang’s campaign office issued a statement after he was summoned by prosecutors, calling on Keelung residents not to allow “a return to the White Terror era.”
The judicial system will vindicate Huang and the Keelung residents have “discerning eyes,” the statement said.
Huang would “run in the election to the end and continue his planned campaign activities regardless of repression,” the office said.
Keelung City Election Commission Chairman Su Hsien-chi (蘇先啟) said Huang’s qualification for election would not be affected even if he is under detention on election day.
According to the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), a person who has been convicted of corruption is ineligible to register as a candidate.
A detention hearing was scheduled for 9:30pm last night and as of press time a ruling had not been made.
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