Liu answers subpoena in Kuang San case

Former Legislative speaker Liu Sung-pan (劉松藩) turned up one hour late at the Taichung District Court yesterday to answer a court subpoena.

Liu was subpoenaed as a witness in a case of illegal loans and possible money-laundering at the Taichung-based Kuang San Group (廣三集團).

It was the second time Liu was subpoenaed for the case. He had failed to appear for the first subpoena on March 1, citing his workload as a key campaign chief for independent presidential candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜).

Liu told reporters yesterday that he was appearing in court at the request of the family of Kuang San Group president Tseng Cheng-jen (曾正仁), who has been in police detention since Feb. 21.

Tseng had been under suspicion for defaulting on payments for stock transactions in 1998 and was indicted by the Taichung Prosecutors' Office last year.

Liu said he hoped his appearance would help Tseng's release on bail.

Besides Liu, several other witnesses were also subpoenaed yesterday. Two of the witnesses who had been suspected of being "dummy accounts" testified that they had lent their bank accounts to Liu but did not know for what purposes Liu had used their accounts.