The Taipei Prosecutors' Office charged the National Security Bureau's (NSB) former chief accountant Hsu Ping-chiang (徐炳強) and former chief cashier Liu Kuan-chun (劉冠軍) with corruption yesterday, and asked the court for a sentence of 15 years for Hsu and 12 years for Liu.
The prosecutors' office said Hsu and Liu had embezzled NT$250 million from the NSB, and gave the money to Taiwan Research Institute president Liu Tai-ying (
Taipei District Prosecutors' Office spokesman Chen Hung-ta (
Chen said that although Hsu and Liu were military officers, the two were deprived of their military positions, allowing the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office to take over and proceed with the case.
Hsu is in detention and Liu is a fugitive.
Chen said Hsu and Liu had broke the Statute for the Punishment of Corruption (貪汙治罪條例) by appropriating public property.
"Hsu and Liu were the gatekeepers of the national treasury but they ended up embezzling NT$250 million for private uses and caused a great loss for the treasury, so the prosecutors decided to ask for a heavy sentence of 15 and 12 years, respectively," Chen said.
According to the statute, appropriating public property can entail a life sentence or a sentence longer than 10 years.
Regarding the involvement of Liu Tai-ying and Ruentex Corp chairman Yin Yen-liang (尹衍樑) in money laundering, Chen said that prosecutors had asked the Ministry of Justice's Bureau of Investigation to continue its investigation.
Chen said a prosecutors' office decision on whether to question former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) would depend on further developments in the case.
The NSB scandal started with 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 prosecutors' investigation, the bureau paid the amount to South Africa 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 NSB. Hsu allegedly asked Liu Kuan-chun to deposit US$7.5 million in the Taiwan Research Institute's bank account.
Liu Kuan-chun is suspected of embezzling more than NT$192 million of the total amount. According to the Bureau of Investigation, he left Taiwan in September 2000 and went to Shanghai. He surfaced in Bangkok in January last year and from there went to North America. Sources said that he is now in Canada.
Liu Tai-ying allegedly wired the money to Ruentex Corp chairman Yin Yen-liang's (
According to a statement by Hsu, he acted on orders from former NSB secretary-general Yin Tsung-wen (殷宗文). The initial order allegedly came from former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝).
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
HOSPITALITY HIT: Hotels in Hualien have an occupancy rate of 10 percent, down from 30 percent before the earthquake, a Tourism Administration official said The Executive Yuan yesterday unveiled a stimulus package of vouchers and subsidies to revive tourism in Hualien County following a quake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale. The tremor on April 3, which killed at least 17 people and left two others missing, caused the county an estimated NT$3 billion (US$92.7 million) in damages. The Ministry of Economic Affairs is to issue vouchers worth NT$200 at the price of NT$100 for purchases at the Dongdamen Night Market (東大門夜市) in Hualien City to boost spending, a ministry official told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in Taipei. The ministry plans to issue 18,400