Kaohsiung Prosecutor Chen Chien-ho (陳建和) issued an arrest warrant for former Kaohsiung City Council speaker Chu An-hsiung (朱安雄) yesterday, warning that Chu will be listed as a wanted person if he does not show up before 3pm Monday.
"We gave him another chance but he still did not come to us. So we had to issue a [three-day] warrant," said Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office Spokesman Chou Chang-chin (
Chu was convicted last month of vote-buying and given a 22-month prison sentence. He was supposed to report to the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office by 3pm on Thursday to begin serving his sentence.
The prosecutors' office gave Chu a "12-hour mercy period" after his wife Wu Te-mei (
Wu reportedly assured Chen that her husband was still in the country and would give himself up soon.
Chou refused to provide further details of the phone call between Wu and Chen or respond to questions about why Chen would have agreed to delaying a warrant based upon one phone conversation.
"I think Chu was merely trying to buy himself some time [referring to Chu's no-show and Wu's phone call]," said Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (陳定南). "But he eventually has to face his problems."
As of press time yesterday, Chu's whereabouts remained unknown.
There has been intense media speculation in the past week that Chu had fled to Shanghai, but law enforcement officials have remained mum on the rumors.
During a press conference yesterday, National Police Administration Director-General Chang Si-liang (
"We have no idea of his whereabouts but we will try our best to track him down," he said.
However, when asked what the authorities could do if Chu turns up in Shanghai, neither Chang nor Chen Ding-nan would comment.
Meanwhile, the police announced yesterday that Wu has also disappeared.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do