Prosecutors and investigators yesterday questioned former education minister Kirby Yung (楊朝祥) and former vice minister Lin Chao-hsien (林昭賢) concerning their roles in the Jin-Wen scandal.
Several officials from the education ministry and the Jin-Wen Group were also summoned for questioning yesterday. Prosecutors were still questioning suspects and witnesses last night and have not yet decided whether to ask the court to detain any suspect.
Prosecutors were looking into whether Yung and other former education officials had inappro-priately approved development plans for the Jin-Wen Institute of Technology.
Jin-Wen was founded as a poly-technic school in 1986, the year Yung became the director of the ministry's vocational education division, the department that oversees polytechnic schools.
The Jin-Wen polytechnic school's curriculum and student body increased in the following years and it upgraded to become an institute of technology in 1998.
However, investigators suspect that the school did not meet certain requirements during its expansion and upgrade but still passed the ministry's review.
Prosecutors found it suspicious that Yung and Lin, among other education officials, owned houses in the villa community of Ta Hsueh Shih Hsiang (大學詩鄉) built by the Jin-Wen Group. They suspect the houses served as bribes by the former head of the Jin-Wen Group, Chang Wan-li (張萬利).
Yung reportedly bought the house in 1997, when he was vice education minister. But he said it was a normal purchase and that he has done nothing unlawful.
The villa community in question was also built on land which the Jin-Wen Institute had originally applied to use for a campus expansion, according to prosecutors. They are concerned about the process by which zoning for the 12-hectare site changed from farming use, to cultural and educational use and finally to residential use.
Prosecutors have been investigating whether several government departments collaborated with the Jin-Wen group to allow the illegal construction of the villas.
Prosecutors are also investigating whether the ministry granted excessive subsidies to the technology institute.
Last Friday, the Taipei District Court ordered a former principal of the Jin-Wen Institute of Technology, Lin Tsung-sung (
RSS