Tainan prosecutors yesterday closed their investigation of a government land requisitioning scam, asking that Tainan City Mayor George Chang (張燦鍙) be sentenced to seven years in jail and that the city's council speaker Huang Yu-wen (黃郁文) receive 10 years.
Another 13 defendants, including Huang's wife Chang Su-chen (
Prosecutors Yen Jung-sung (
They alleged that Chang, a 65-year-old DPP party member, improperly ordered the requisition of land owned by Huang and then illegally allowed him to receive NT$160 million in government compensation in return.
In his defense, Chang said the Tainan City Government followed routine procedures in requisitioning the land, and that the transaction was no different from that in other cities or counties. He said he had no idea why he ran afoul of the law.
Chang also said that if there was indeed something illegal about the deal, the prosecutors should not have only targeted Tainan City.
"I have never taken any money. I don't know what crime I committed," Chang said.
During the investigation, Chang, the former chairman of the World United Formosans for Independence (台獨聯盟), was detained from April 18 to May 18. He was released after the wife of a Tainan City government employee posted NT$2.5 billion bail on his behalf.
Apart from the land requisitioning scam, prosecutors have indicted Chang twice before. The first time was for a scandal concerning the repair and landscaping of a canal, for which prosecutors recommended he be sentenced to 12 years in jail. The other incident involved corruption charges surrounding an industrial park development project, for which prosec-utors asked for a sentence of seven years. Both cases are still under investigation by the Tainan District Court.
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