Prosecutors target two officials in corruption cases

A Hsinchu City council speaker was indicted and the mayor of Pingchen City detained yesterday in separate corruption cases.

Hsinchu district prosecutors yesterday indicted Cheng Cheng-kuang (鄭成光), speaker of the Hsinchu Municipal Council. Prosecutors say Cheng embezzled an NT$3 million donation from the Hsinchu Sogo department store that was earmarked for 921 quake relief.

"Cheng received the donation in his capacity as head of a local representative body and supposedly on behalf of the citizenry, but then embezzled the money," said Chen Hung-ta (陳宏達), a divisional head prosecutor. "This conflicts with the expectations of the public and has harmed public confidence in the government's management of relief funds."

Prosecutors are seeking a three year sentence for Cheng.

Sogo donated the NT$3 million check to Cheng's office on Sept. 30.

But prosecutors say that Cheng kept the check until Sept. 30 of this year, the last day before the check expired, then deposited the money into his private account at the First Commercial Bank, according to the indictment.

Cheng claims he's innocent, saying that he had intended to transfer the money to the central government's relief fund via the Hsinchu City Government, but the city government failed to handle the matter.

The city councilor said he then asked Sogo to take back the check but the request was declined. Cheng therefore decided to deposit the money into his personal account temporarily for future charitable use.

But prosecutors do not accept his explanation.

Investigators first questioned Cheng on Dec. 13 and won court approval to detain him. It took another 10 days to draw up the indictment, and Cheng was released from custody yesterday.

Chen said that Cheng had been detained to prevent him from conspiring with witnesses. Because prosecutors wrapped up their questioning of witnesses in the 10-day period Cheng was detained, there was no reason to hold him further, Chen said.

Cheng made no public comment yesterday.

Meanwhile, in a separate case, the Taoyuan District Court yesterday approved a district prosecutors' request to detain Yeh Pu-chun (葉步群), mayor of Pingchen City, Taoyuan County, and Chang Pu-chin (張步欽), the manager of a waste handling company.

Prosecutors say Chang gave NT$2 million to Yeh, who in turn overpaid to Chang's company the city's "incinerator waste handling expenses."