In its latest ruling on an adulterated cooking oil scandal, the Changhua County District Court yesterday found a clerk at Ting Hsin International Group (頂新製油實業) guilty of concealing evidence and sentenced her to four months in jail.
Chiang Su-tuan (江淑端) worked as an administrative clerk at subsidiary Ting Hsin Oil and Fat Industrial Co (頂新製油實業). The jail term can be commuted to a fine.
Investigators found that Chiang took company documents, including signed memos and instructions by Ting Hsin executives, and hid them in her car, according to the ruling, which can be appealed.
To date, Chiang is the only person to have been found guilty in the adulterated cooking oil scandal that shook the nation last year. Last month, the court found company chairman Wei Ying-chun (魏應充) not guilty of breaching the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法).
The latest ruling drew a storm of protests online, with netizens saying that judges only saw fit to punish a “lowly administrative clerk,” while letting the big fish — the culprits who had the real power to make decisions, such as Wei and other Ting Hsin executives — off the hook.
In her court testimony, Chiang said she was only a clerk who handled paperwork pertaining to employees’ personnel files, health insurance and other administrative affairs, and that she was not involved in the procurement, manufacturing and sales of cooking oil products.
Chiang said she was asked by her superiors to work overtime at the time, and was ordered to help find company receipts, product shipment records and other files.
She said she was only following the instructions of her superiors, who told her to take the documents and place them in her car, where investigators found them.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique