PFP lawmakers yesterday questioned the wiring of five disbursements of money in June 1997 to accounts belonging to relatives of former president Lee Teng-hui (
PFP lawmaker Liu Wen-hsiung (劉文雄) claimed that the five wirings of money -- with a combined value of NT$52 million -- from the Farmers' Bank of China (農民銀行) to the accounts of Anna Lee (李安娜), former president Lee Teng-hui's daughter, and Chang Kwei-fen (張桂芬), the sister of Lee's daughter-in-law Chang Yue-yun (張月雲), are extremely suspicious, because the bank is where part of the NSB's secret funds are deposited.
Liu made the charges based on a tip-off letter sent to him last Friday.
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES N
He said the letter pointed out that the transactions were dubious because they were made within the span of a single month and that the money was withdrawn from a bank where a portion of NSB funds was located.
"Responsible departments must launch an investigation into why the money was wired from the Farmers' Bank.
"Did the transaction have anything to do with the accounts of a certain bureau, [referring to the NSB]," he said.
Other PFP lawmakers said they suspected that the money was embezzled from the KMT or the Taiwan Research Institute, a think tank founded by the former president.
They requested Anna Lee and Chang Kwei-fen explain the origin and the purpose of the money.
No members of the Lee family made any comment yesterday, but TSU lawmakers, who view Lee as their guru, painted the accusations as "outrageous and immoral."
TSU lawmaker Lo Chih-ming (
"Aren't the relatives of the former president allowed to make investments, or engage in business dealings?" he said.
Anna Lee runs the Lincoln American School in Taichung. Chang Kwei-fen is in the automobile import business.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
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