Former Hsinchu mayor Tsai Jen-chien (蔡仁堅), erstwhile boyfriend of the one-time Hsinchu City Bureau of Cultural Affairs chief Chu Mei-feng (璩美鳳), was yesterday issued with a summons to go to the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office.
Meanwhile, in the Legislative Yuan yesterday, Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (陳定南) vehemently asserted his innocence on charges made by some lawmakers that he, because he is a friend of Tsai's, may have interfered in the investigation into the secret filming of a sex VCD.
The summons requires that Tsai report to prosecutors as a potential witness in that investigation.
"The reason why we are summoning him as a `potential witness' instead of as a `witness' is that other than Kuo Yu-ling (
Kuo, a "spiritual growth" instructor at a religious-healing center called Avatar, has admitted to prosecutors that she installed the equipment that made the VCD possible, but said that she acted on the orders of somebody else whom she has refused to name.
Chen said the task force's current focus is on identifying the primary culprit in the case and to establish the whereabouts of the original tape. Investigators have obtained Kuo's telephone records and notebooks and found the name and telephone number of Tsai among them.
"On the basis of what we have established," Chen said, "prosecutors believe there is more than a good chance that there might be more than one original tape and that the main culprit still possesses them. Tsai might know this person or be able to provide more clues to help us figure out who it is.
"But don't get me wrong," he continued. "Tsai's summons does not mean that he will be treated as a witness or suspect. Prosecutors need him to clear up certain questions to which, obviously, current evidence suggests he could be key."
He said that the summons would notify Tsai to attend the prosecutors' office at an appointed time, which he was not at liberty to divulge, before this week comes to an end.
Meanwhile, answering questions at the Judicial Committee of the Legislative Yuan yesterday morning, Minister Chen said that in the investigation of cases prosecutors are no longer influenced by politics.
"Unconfirmed information and rumors, on the other hand, can affect an investigation," he said.
"Many people have suspected me of interfering due to my friendship with Tsai," Chen said. "Actually, that was a malicious rumor and the truth is that I have never been involved in the investigation. That is our prosecutors' job and, at the moment, I think they're doing quite well."
Continuing to state his innocence, he said, "Moreover, this is just an ordinary criminal case. I don't believe that any politician would interfere in a case like this."
"What makes you believe that any government official would speak for a former city mayor and get involved in a case like this?" he said.
‘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
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
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