The Chinese-language United Daily News was censured by the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office yesterday for violating the confidentiality of interrogations and publishing false reports concerning the testimony of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) over the reopened Chung Hsing Bills finance fraud case against People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜).
The pro-Soong newspaper Thursday published details and a photograph of a memo it claimed was written by Lee, noting four charges against Soong.
According to the story, written by senior judicial reporter Kao Nien-yi (高年憶), the former president jotted down four accusations about how Soong had embezzled the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) funds. He then left the note on the witness' table in the interrogation room, where he was questioned by Chief Prosecutor Lin Bang-liang (林邦樑) and Prosecutor Meng Ling-shih (孟令士) Wednesday.
Taipei District Prosecutors' Office Spokesman Chen Hung-ta (
According to the Code of Criminal Procedure (
As a result, the conversations inside the room are also not allowed to be made public. Certainly no reporter should have had access to the interrogation room, nor should any photography have taken place. The second cause for concern was that the note was not Lee's but had in fact been scribbled by Meng.
"This is a disgrace," Chen said yesterday. "It is the media's job to go for the truth and make it public within the shortest time, not to make up stories and confuse the public."
The United Daily News admitted the story was incorrect and published a retraction and apology yesterday.
A less than contrite Kao, however, said that it was Chen himself who had escorted him to the interrogation room after Lee's questioning so that he could see the configuration of the seats for his report. Chen called this a malicious lie and said that if it were necessary he was quite prepared to supply the courtroom security video to prove this.
Kao also described in his story that prosecutors prepared coffee and tea for Lee during the interrogation. However, both Lee and Chen denied Kao's report.
Lee said on Friday that he only drank water. Chen said that prosecutors did not make any special arrangement for Lee, except for allowing his own security guards to be present, and he was treated as an ordinary citizen.
"This is a serious problem and I think media supervisors should not let this kind of mistake happen again and again," said Chen.
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