Prosecutors seek to hold Liu Tai-ying

The Taipei District Court today will hear prosecutors' aruguments in favor of having China Development Financial Holding Corp (中華開發) Chairman Liu Tai-ying (劉泰英) detained for his involvement in the Zanadau Development Corp (新瑞都) scandal -- for the third time.

"To successfully persuade judges to grant our request this time, we have collected more evidence to justify our need to detain Liu," said Morley Shih (施茂林), the prosecutor-general of the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office.

Shih said that prosecutors have sufficient evidence to show that Liu attempted to exchange information with other suspects involved in the case.

"[Taipei District Court] Judges will understand everything when they see the evidence during the rehearing," he said.

Today's rehearing at the Taipei District Court will be the third in a series of rehearings.

On Nov. 27 last year Liu was subpoenaed for the first time, but despite prosecutors' accusations of breach of trust, corruption and violating the Securities Transaction Law, he was released by the Taipei District Court after 26 hours of questioning. Following a 10-hour debate on Dec. 31, the Taipei District Court again rejected prosecutors' request to detain Liu.

Shih said that Chief Prosecutor Lin Jinn-tsun (林錦村), who is in charge of the investigation, has resumed his work on the case since the fourth day of the Lunar New Year last week and will try his best to convince judges that interrogation should take place while Liu is in custody.

Liu yesterday had no comment on the way his case was being handled.

Liu was accused by former Zanadau Development Corp vice president Su Hui-chen (蘇惠珍), now the company's majority shareholder, of accepting kickbacks from Su of NT$1.06 billion. Su first made her remarks at a press conference at the Legislative Yuan on Sept. 16 last year.

During the investigation, prosecutors discovered unusual transactions in Liu's bank accounts and said that Liu could not provide clear explainations for them.

In addition to the usual transactions, prosecutors suspect Liu of misappropriating KMT money on behalf of Zanadau Development Corp and other companies, while Liu was the chairman of the KMT's Business Management Committee.

This means that Liu could also face charges of theft, in addition to charges of corruption, embezzlement, breach of trust, violating the Securities Transaction Law, document forgery and violating the Corporation Law while serving as chairman of the committee.

Liu was once known as the KMT's unofficial treasurer and was a close friend of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝). He is widely thought to have exercised ultimate control over the KMT's assets during Lee's chairmanship of the party.

Today's third rehearing at the lower court was scheduled for 10am.