DPP Legislator Yu Jane-daw (余政道) yesterday reasserted the innocence of his mother -- senior adviser to the president, Yu Chen Yueh-ying (余陳月瑛) -- of any involvement in the Zanadau scandal, saying that six million shares she held in Zanadau had been acquired legally.
Yu Chen, 76, who served as president of Zanadau before 1998, was released on Dec. 24 last year on NT$500,000 bail after being interrogated for about 12 hours by Kaohsiung prosecutors.
At a press conference called by Yu yesterday, Yu's accountant, Weng Rung-sui (翁榮隨), explained that Zanadau principal shareholder Su Hui-chen (蘇惠珍) had given her the shares in lieu of an outstanding debt.
Su owed Yu Chen NT$97 million on a NT$105 million loan extended in 1994 for a construction project unrelated to the shopping mall at the center of the scandal. Su and Yu first met each other to cooperate on an earlier property transaction.
"Instead of returning the cash to Yu Chen, Su gave Yu Chen 6 million Zanadau shares, worth about the same as the NT$97 million debt," Weng said.
Weng said that Yu Chen loaned Su the money by writing eight checks worth NT$105 million from July to August of 1994. Weng presented copies of the checks at the press conference, written on an account at First Commercial Bank's (第一商業銀行) Kanshan branch.
However, Weng said that only six of 48 checks Su wrote to repay the loan were honored by her bank.
"Yu Chen didn't want Zanadau's shares, but she had no choice," said lawyer Kuo Yi-cheng (郭一誠), who witnessed the signing of the agreement to transfer the shares between Su and Yu Chen on June 18, 1996.
Kuo said that the money Yu Chen lent to Su was from the sale of family land in Kaohsiung County.
Yu Chen's lawyer, Huang Cheng-nan (黃正男), said that the deal was totally legal.
Huang said that Yu Chen "never illegally helped" Zanadau buy land for the construction of the shopping mall.
"Yu Chen was never involved in any aspect of the Zanadau development project, including any of the policy decisions," Huang said yesterday.
Prosecutors said that between March and July 1994 Su bought 57 tracts of farmland, supposedly for the shopping mall, for between NT$3,700 and NT$14,500 per ping, worth more than NT$400 million.
They said that after construction of the shopping mall was approved, she then sold 30 tracts for NT$80,000 per ping. Prosecutors are investigating the legality of the sale and have been holding Su since the end of last month.
Lin Jinn-tsun (林錦村) of the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office said that prosecutors would use Yu's statements as evidence.
The case was recently transferred from the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office to Taipei.
Yu's press conference follows his promise late last month to release details of his mother's finances.
"I think that my mother trusted Su too much," Yu told reporters yesterday.
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