Taipei Chief Prosecutor Hsueh Wei-ping (薛維平) yesterday wanted to detain former China Development Holding Corp chairman Liu Tai-ying (劉泰英) on charges of embezzlement and money laundering, but the Taipei District Court decided to let Liu go because of a lack of evidence.
Liu, who is president of the Taiwan Research Institute, was first interrogated by special agents from the Ministry of Justice's Bureau of Investigation at around 9:30am on Friday. At about 4pm, special agents transferred him to the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office for another interrogation by Hsueh.
PHOTO: LUO PEI-DE, LIBERTY TIMES
By about midnight, Hsueh believed that there was a good chance that Liu would destroy pieces of evidence or exchange information with crucial witnesses and filed a detention request.
The Taipei District Court began to review Hsueh's detention request at around 4am yesterday but finally decided to release Liu without bail at 8:20am.
As he was walking out of the court building, Liu said that he had an agreement with the judges that he would not comment on the case in public.
"I am quite tired now. Please understand that I am not supposed to comment on the case outside the courtroom. I gave the judges my word," Liu said.
Hsueh is currently investigating the disappearance in 1994 of US$4.5 million from a secret fund of US$10.58 million to secure Taiwan's diplomatic relationship with South Africa.
According to his investigation, the National Security Bureau paid the amount to South Africa to secure the diplomatic relationship between two countries on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in May 1994.
On April 4, 1999, the ministry returned a total of US$10.7 million, including interest, to the bureau. The bureau's former chief accountant, Hsu Ping-chiang (
Liu Kuan-chun is wanted for allegedly embezzling more than NT$192 million from the total amount. According to the Bureau of Investigation, Liu left Taiwan on Sept. 3, 2000 and went to Shanghai. He surfaced in Bangkok in January last year and from there went to North America. Sources say that he is now in Canada.
Liu Tai-ying allegedly wired the money to Ruentex Corp Chairman Yin Yen-liang's (尹衍樑) bank accounts in the US and Singapore. Upon receiving the money, Yin allegedly wired it to one of the Ruentex Corp's bank accounts in Taiwan. Then, he "donated" US$3 million of it to the Taiwan Research Institute. However, prosecutors have not yet discovered the whereabouts of the missing US$4.5 million.
Hsu has been detained since July 18. In addition, prosecutors have also interrogated Yin, then-minister of foreign affairs Jason Hu (胡志強) and many other witnesses. According to Hsu's statement, he insisted that he acted on direct orders from former National Security Bureau secretary-general Yin Tsung-wen (殷宗文). The initial order allegedly came directly from former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝).
Yin Tsung-wen died of adenocarcinoma, a kind of lung cancer, on March 28 this year.
As a result, whether Lee was involved in or knew of the crime is another mystery which prosecutors are trying to figure out.
Hsueh said that prosecutors may summon Lee if necessary.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS