Ministry of Justice officials yesterday denied a Chinese-language news story which alleged that former president Lee Teng-hui (
The ministry also said that prosecutors will not have mercy on any suspect if there is substantial proof a crime has been committed, but added that prosecutors were not investigating the former president for these charges.
"I was so surprised when I first read it in the newspaper. I do not know where the reporter got the information from but I am quite sure it would not be from our prosecutors. However, I must say, prosecutors will not have mercy on any suspect if the evidence is solid," said Vice Minister of Justice Hsieh Wen-ting (謝文定).
Hsieh made his remarks at the Legislative Yuan yesterday.
The report alleged that prior to summoning China Development Financial Holding Corp Chairman Liu Tai-ying (劉泰英) again on Monday for questioning in connection with the Zanadau Development Corp (新瑞都) scandal, prosecutors had discovered a number of payments to Liu's bank account totaling NT$290 million, from a "secret bank account" belonging to Lee in the years 1996 and 1997.
They had uncovered the transactions while trying to identify the huge kickbacks Liu is alleged to have received from then vice president of Zanadau, Su Hui-chen (蘇惠珍), who is now the majority shareholder of the company.
Liu is reported to have told prosecutors during previous interviews that Lee had transferred NT$290 million to him, saying the money was campaign donations from Lee's supporters for the 1996 presidential election. He is alleged to have told prosecutors that Lee asked him to "invest the money for Lee's personal benefit." However, prosecutors did not discover any tax reports of Lee's, regarding these investments.
In the late afternoon yesterday, Lee's office issued a statement from the former president in the form of a press release.
"I have no comment on the Zanadau case. But I would urge the media not to publish unconfirmed stories which will damage their own reputation and hurt innocent people," Lee said.
"As a prosecutor, I will not make any comment on any cases or on news stories." said Taipei District Prosecutors' Office spokesman Chen Hung-ta (陳宏達).
As of press time yesterday prosecutors had indicted ten suspects in the Zanadau scandal and said that there will be a second indictment.
Taipei District Court held the first hearing for the case on March 21 and announced the second hearing on April 22.
Meanwhile yesterday, Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (陳定南) and Chen Hung-ta also urged the public to be patient with the judicial process in the Zanadau case while prosecutors are still investigating the case.
Chen Ding-nan said that the truth will be made public.
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read: