The Kaohsiung District Prosecu-tors' Office yesterday indicted Kaohsiung City Councilor Chen Chun-sheng (
Wu, of the KMT, lost the election to current DPP chairman Frank Hsieh (
Prosecutors said Chen used a fabricated cassette tape to claim that Wu had an affair with a female journalist.
Chen in November 1998 held a press conference to make public the content of the cassette, which contained a lovers' talk between a man and a woman. Chen claimed that the conversation was between the married mayor and a female local journalist. He claimed at the time that an anonymous man provided the tape.
During the campaign Chen, who was running for city councilor, demanded that Wu make an open apology to all of the women of Kaohsiung City and withdraw from the election.
Two days later, Wu sued Chen for libel. Chen later produced three reports that, he said, proved the tape was not fabricated.
During the investigation, pro-secutors sought the assistance of a number of domestic and foreign agencies to authenticate the tapes. They finally based their conclusions primarily on reports from the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau and from a New York-based laboratory named OWL.
The OWL report says that "the tape ? is not authentic and should not be considered as reliable evidence." The prosecutors concluded that the tape was fabricated.
According to Article 92 of the Public Officials Election and Recall Law (公職人員選罷法) cited by prosecutors to indict Chen, Chen's alleged offense of slandering a candidate in an attempt to alter election results carries a penalty of imprisonment for up to five years.
Chen, however, insisted in a press conference yesterday that the tape was authentic. He said that the prosecutors' authentication was flawed and that he would ask the court to conduct further examinations.
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