Following a warning from a legal advisor, independent presidential candidate James Soong's (
Huang Tung-hsiung (黃東熊), a lawyer for Soong, told the Taipei Times yesterday that Soong and his aides had tentatively decided on Tuesday to donate the money, which Soong admitted belonged to the KMT.
But Soong's camp put the plan on hold after Huang warned them that the donation might have far-reaching legal implications.
Acting on Soong's behalf, Huang sent the money as checks to both the Presidential Office and the KMT's party headquarters by registered mail, but the letters were returned unopened each time.
In response to the news, Huang Hwei-chen (
Huang Hwei-chen had said earlier that the party would not accept a private settlement with Soong but would take the case to court.
Meanwhile, the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office began to summons witnesses in Soong's case for questioning.
However, only one of the two persons scheduled to appear for questioning turned up yesterday morning.
Kuo Chao-yang (
Prosecutors believe Kuo's associates received a seven-digit NT dollar sum from Soong in the run-up to the legislative elections in 1992. The money was remitted from the accounts of Soong's financial advisor Chen Pi-yun (
Kuo refused to answer questions from reporters yesterday, but said he was only helping out his uncle during the election campaign.
The other witness, Tsai Yu-min (
The prosecutors plan to summons about 20 people for questioning over the next few days. The witnesses include donors and recipients of money involved in the case.
Many legislative candidates each received between NT$1 million and NT$5 million during that time, remitted from Soong's account as KMT secretary-general and the Hua Hsia fund account, according to Hung.
The Control Yuan also plans to summons a key witness, former deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Provincial Government Ma Chieh-ming (
Investigators at the government watchdog agency believe Ma handled the remittance of at least NT$100 million to the US on behalf of Soong, the report said.
Soong reacted angrily to the report, accusing high-level KMT and government officials of abusing their administrative powers and leaking false information to the press.
"If any high official says such things on record, I'll take legal action against them," Soong said.
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