The Taiwan High Court sentenced independent legislator Wu Tzer-yuan (
The court found that Wu had accepted more than NT$6 million in bribes while he served as the director of the Taiwan Provincial Planning and Developing Department between 1988 and 1992.
The court said Wu, former legislator Lee Tsung-cheng (
The court said Wu took the money in exchange for helping Kuo-feng win the pumping station contract, which was designed to resolve flooding problems in Panchiao.
The court gave Wu 15 years, blasting him for caring nothing about the lives and properties of hundreds of thousands of Panchiao residents when making the kickback deal.
Wu, who was ordered detained during a trial by the Panchiao District Court in 1996, was granted bail for medical reasons by the High Court in May 1998.
Seven months after his release, the former KMT politician was elected to the legislature -- despite his membership being canceled by the party, which disapproved of his campaign.
During the trial, Wu answered almost every court summons, though he did not attend yesterday's verdict announcement.
Both Wu and prosecutors could appeal yesterday's decision.
Wu's status as a legislator will not be affected until his case is affirmed by the Supreme Court.
As an enormously powerful politician in the southern county of Pingtung, Wu earned widespread attention for his involvement in the case. Previous court rulings have swung wildly between his favor and that of the prosecutors.
In 1996, the Panchiao District Court found Wu guilty and sentenced him to life in prison for taking bribes of more than NT$26 million. Wu, who was serving as a Pingtung county commissioner at the time, was forced to resign from his post.
But in 1998, the High Court reversed the district court's ruling and reduced Wu's sentence to 15 years. The court also ruled that Wu had taken NT$6 million in bribes, not NT$26 million.
Then in October that same year, the Supreme Court returned the case to the High Court, saying the lower court had "deliberately applied laws favorable to Wu" in reducing his sentence.
In response to the Supreme Court's ruling, the High Court changed the charge against Wu to one that carries a possible prison term of life. But the length of the sentence remained 15 years.
Apart from his sentence, Wu's medical parole has also been attacked in light of his run for the legislature. Some critics have called for the lawmaker to be put back in detention.
The Judicial Reform Foundation, an organization that has been especially critical of Wu's parole, recently issued a statement to the High Court judges on the case. The foundation said that the lawmaker appears to be in good health and should therefore be incarcerated again.
But the High Court declined to detain Wu, saying the reasons to hold him were no longer valid. There was no reason to believe Wu would destroy evidence in the case or suborn perjury, the court said.
The court also noted that Wu had attended almost every hearing in the trial and so it did not judge him to be a flight risk.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying