Lawyers Huang Ti-ying (黃帝穎) and Cheng Wen-lung (鄭文龍) yesterday panned the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office for rejecting a request by several civic groups to prohibit President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) from leaving the country amid allegations of abuse of power and corruption.
Huang, along with the Taiwan Association of University Professors, the Taiwan Forever group and the Northern Taiwan Society, on April 26 lodged a formal complaint with the Taipei office against Ma.
They accused Ma of profiting the Farglory Group (遠雄集團) in the scandal-dogged Taipei Dome project during his term as Taipei mayor and instigating former prosecutor-general Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) in 2013 to leak details in a controversial wiretapping investigation of former legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), while questioning reports of unexplained increases in his personal wealth while in office.
Photo: Chiang Chih-hsiung, Taipei Times
The groups asked the office to ban Ma, who is to step down on Friday next week, from leaving the country to secure potential evidence.
However, the office turned down the request, saying that Huang Ti-ying and the civic groups were not a “legal entity” as defined in Article 219, Clause 1, Item 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Huang Ti-ying blasted the office’s decision, saying it was “politically motivated.”
He said the complaint the groups filed served as a “notice” to prosecutors that Ma might be linked to prosecutors’ investigations into the Taipei Dome and Huang Shih-ming cases.
“Following the precedent set by the office during its investigation into former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) case, prosecutors should know that Ma, who has a green card and two daughters who have US citizenships, and, as president, is familiar with possible channels of escape, could cause significant delays to the prosecution were he allowed to leave the country,” Huang Ti-ying said.
Ma has said he has not renewed his green card, which has therefore been nullified.
He questioned the timing of the prosecutors’ response, “coming eight days before Ma leaves the Presidential Office,” and said that prosecutors should look after the interests of the “victim in this case, which is the whole nation.”
Cheng said the office’s decision contravened normal procedures.
The complaint was a notice to prosecutors and the office should prepare to undertake a possible investigation instead of rejecting the request at this point.
“The rejection has made us question the office’s motives. It also goes to show that although Ma is stepping down [as president], he still has tight control over the nation’s prosecutorial and investigation system,” Cheng said.
Ma has accrued quite a number of cases during his time as Taipei mayor and two terms as president, and has clearly been implicated in some cases, such as the ones involving the Taipei Dome and Huang Shih-ming, the lawyer added.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS