Former Chiayi County Council speaker Hsiao Teng-piao (蕭登標) left prison on parole yesterday complaining of victimization by Taiwan's judicial system and politicians.
"Taiwan's judicial system has treated me unfairly," he said. "This is not the first time that my enemies have used the judicial system to cut me down."
Hsiao was originally convicted for breach of trust in January 2000 over allegations that he abused his political office to gain loans above his credit limit from farmers' associations.
Hsiao, a political independent, spent most of 2000 in jail before being released to await the verdict of an appeal to the Supreme Court.
He was arrested again on Jan. 16 and detained at Yunlin Second Prison.
Hsiao spoke publicly of his incarceration as soon as he walked out of the prison early this afternoon.
He said he realized that he had many political enemies and that they had tried everything to make him end his political career.
"When Liao Cheng-hao (
Hsiao was charged with robbery, false imprisonment, extortion, blackmail, illegal possession of weapons and public order violations while Liao was justice minister in the KMT Cabinet from 1995 to 1998. All the charges were later dropped.
The grassroots political heavyweight went on the run in 1997 after being listed as wanted under the Chihping Anti-gangster Program (
After more than two years on the run, he turned himself in to Chiayi prosecutors on Sept. 17, 1999. He was detained for a week until the case was dropped for lack of evidence.
But he was arrested again less than a week later on breach of trust charges and held until his conviction.
"Regarding the charges of breach of trust on which I was convicted, prosecutors decided to indict me only two days after they began to investigate my case," he said. "It is hard to believe that our law enforcement officers were not influenced by political factors when they were working on my case."
He was convicted of the offense in January 2000 and remained in detention until December that year, when his appeal against the conviction was dismissed by Taiwan High Court. He was nevertheless granted bail pending his further appeal to the Supreme Court.
Hsiao had hoped to represent Chiayi in the legislature as an independent last year but was disqualified from running by the Central Election Commission after the Supreme Court upheld his conviction.
Hsiao was arrested on Jan. 16 after failing to comply with the Supreme Court's order to report to the Chiayi District Prosecutors' Office on Dec. 27 last year to complete his sentence.
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