Ex-legislator names Lee Teng-hui in military scandals

Controversial former legislator Chu Kao-cheng's (朱高正) first act after being released from serving a one-month prison term for defamation was to claim that former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) had a hand in military procurement scandals.

Chu spent last month in jail for falsely accusing a fellow candidate of corruption in the 1989 legislative elections. He was released yesterday.

Talking about the recent investigations into the murder of former navy Captain Ying Chin-feng (尹清楓), Chu said that getting to the bottom of the mystery would be next to impossible and that coming to a complete understanding of the nature of alleged military procurement scandals would be similarly difficult.

Chu said that it was he who first challenged the multi-billion-dollar military procurement projects in 1993 and said that current investigations would go nowhere because those responsible go all the way up the political ladder -- to the Presidential Office.

Chu says that Su Chih-cheng (蘇志誠), a close aide of the former president, and his younger brother, Su Chih-jen (蘇志仁), were involved in the scandals. In fact, in 1996 Chu publicly accused the younger Su of being an illegal arms dealer -- a claim that the courts found unacceptable. Chu was ordered to pay Su NT$500,000 in damages for making the statement.

Chu again pointed to Su Chih-cheng yesterday when talking about the investigation into Ying's murder and the scandals that have subsequently been linked with it.

Chu said that former president Lee was actually the man behind Su and suggested that this was because Su could not handle the enormous amount of money that was involved.

"It's just like when the police chief is corrupt, his subordinate police officers must also be corrupt. But if the chief isn't concerned with money, none of his subordinates would dare act unlawfully," Chu said, apparently referring to the relationship between the former president and Su.

Chu, known for his outspokenness, was one of founders of the DPP in 1987 but later left the party because he could not agree with the DPP's pro-independence ideology. He then formed the Social Democrat Party and later integrated it with the New Party.

Not long after he was defeated in the election for provincial governor in 1994, Chu left the New Party. Although Chu has finished serving his time for defamation, there are many lawsuits still pending against him.