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Control Yuan blasts foreign ministry over Wang case

Control Yuan member Chao Ron-yaw presents a report on the investigation into suspected dereliction of duty on the part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in granting notarization documents to fugitive Andrew Wang. PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES

The Control Yuan ordered corrective measures yesterday against the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the ministry's sub-agencies improper handling of the controversial notarization issue surrounding fugitive murder suspect Andrew Wang (汪傳浦).

"We found it necessary to propose corrective measures against the representative offices in Geneva and London, plus the Bureau of Consular Affairs," said Louis Chao (趙榮耀), chief of the four-member task force looking into the matter, in a press conference yesterday afternoon.

The report sailed through a subcommittee meeting at the government's watchdog organization yesterday afternoon before it was formally released.

The task force asked the ministry to punish officials involved the case, while passing on the report to a special investigation team under the Ministry of Justice to investigate into whether officials broke the law, Chao said.

The report came as a slap on the face to the executive branch as a Cabinet report has said the representative offices in Geneva and London did not act unlawfully by issuing the papers to Wang in July 2001 and last month.

The report said Wang failed to file a complete application form when he authorized his lawyer to file the application for notarization of a certificate of endorsement at the Geneva office in July 2001.

The report attached a copy of the non-standard application form Wang's lawyer filed in Geneva in which the name of applicant and the date of expiry for the applicant's Taiwan passport were left blank.

The task force also found that even Wang's signature on the application form was a duplication of his original signature that appeared from a fax Wang sent to his lawyer in Switzerland.

Wang was believed to be residing in London when his lawyer handled the issue on his behalf in Geneva, Control Yuan members said.

The Control Yuan members criticized the office in London for having allowed Wang, who appeared at the office in person on Feb. 5 to present his revoked Taiwan passport as his ID.

"If the passport has become void, how could it be utilized to prove his identity?" said Lin Chiu-shan (林秋山), a member of the task force.

"The government has repeatedly vowed to have Wang arrested. Now that Wang had reached your office, you took absolutely no action except issuing the paper to him. How would this attitude help the government find him?" Lin said.

Wang has been wanted since September 2000 in connection with the murder of navy Captain Yin Ching-feng (尹清楓) in December 1993. He is suspected of having received a share of a secret commission for having played an instrumental role in securing a deal for a French company, Thomson CSF, now called Thales, to build six Lafayette frigates for Taiwan.

The report said the office in London ignored an official document filed by the foreign ministry last July which requested overseas representative offices to help the government arrest Wang.

"The office simply turned a blind eye to the document which we found unbelievable," Lin said.

The report also found the bureau guilty of dereliction of duty in its handling of the case.

For instance, the task force, after its investigation into the case in Geneva, had ordered the bureau to exercise caution should Wang apply for any similar documents at Taiwan's overseas representative offices or embassies. Such an order was not passed on to these offices until March 3, the report said.

The task force had argued that Wang should not be entitled to any similar application since the issuing of such a document to Wang violates Taiwan's "national interest," members said, citing an article in the regulations governing overseas consular affairs.

The Control Yuan had requested overseas consular officials to ask Wang to show his valid ID should he file any similar application in the future, an order ignored by the London office when it accepted Wang's invalid passport as his ID.

The report also grilled the bureau for having lost an internal document with regards to the case in Geneva.

The bureau's Chan Hsien-ching (詹憲卿) had stepped down from his post after the controversial issue.
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