The Kaohsiung Prosecutors' Office yesterday said the bribery investigation for the Kaohsiung City Council's speaker election will be finished before the Lunar New Year, at the end of this month.
Nineteen Kaohsiung City councilors have reported to the office and four have turned up with money they received from newly elected speaker Chu An-hsiung (
The office said it will investigate alleged bribery in the city council's vice-speaker election as soon as the investigation over vote-buying in the speaker election is over.
Prosecutors yesterday interrogated Wang Wen-cheng (王文正), director of Kaohsiung City Government's Civil Affairs Bureau, Chu An-hsiung (朱安雄), the newly elected speaker, and Wu The-mei (吳德美), Chu's wife and a former legislator.
Wang was arrested late last night after a one-day interrogation.
Chou Chang-chin (周章欽), spokesman for the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office, said, "Wang is suspected of approaching the councilors to vote for Chu and later delivering the bribe money for Chu."
Nineteen councilors have reported to the prosecutors office, either voluntarily or under arraignment. Of the 19, 11 have agreed to hand in the bribe money, and four handed in a total of NT$20 million to the office yesterday.
Chou reiterated remarks he made yesterday that suggested that prosecutors were backtracking on their original promise to suspend charges against councilors who gave themselves up. He told reporters that councilors who hand in bribe money and implicate other councilors "might enjoy a suspension of prosecution."
Such a suspension would allow councilors to complete their four-year term, and ensure that they are not prosecuted unless they commit another offence within a period to be stipulated by prosecutors.
Legislators raised objections to this possibility in the Legislative Yuan yesterday.
PFP Legislator Lee Ching-hua (
He also suggested that the postponement of prosecution should be only applied to those councilors who tender their resignations.
Reacting to Lee's suggestion, Chou said, "Not every councilor will enjoy the suspension of prosecution. It really depends on the deal between the prosecutors and the councilors, and whether the information these councilors offered is crucial to the investigation."
Chou said that they would make the final decision on the postponement of prosecution when the investigation is wrapped up.
Since the prosecutors' office decided last week to offer plea bargains to those councilors involved, eight councilors are known to have turned themselves in.
A prosecutor said yesterday that under existing city or county council election regulations, except for those serving prison terms, councilors who are convicted of bribery will be allowed to keep their seats.
"The court process from sentencing to jailing will take some time and by the time that Chu is in prison, his term as city council speaker will probably be about over," the prosecutor said
The newly elected vice speaker of the city council, Tsai Sung-hsiung (蔡松雄), decided last week to suspend a provisional meeting of the council scheduled for Jan. 13 to deter speculation that the city council is hoping to use the provisional meeting as a "protection umbrella," because councilors enjoy judicial immunity while the council is in session.
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