Former judge and New Party legislator Hsieh Chi-ta (
"To me, [being in jail] was more like sitting doing Zen meditation," Hsieh said as she was received by friends, relatives and supporters following her release.
PHOTO: LIAO CHENG-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES
Hsieh was sentenced on Dec. 21 last year in a defamation case brought by Tseng Wen-hui (
Hsieh, Feng and Tai had claimed that Tseng attempted to flee to New York after the 2000 presidential election with US$85 million in her luggage but was turned back by customs officials.
Opting to go to jail instead of paying an NT$81,000 fine, Hsieh was unrepentant about her behavior and said that her three-month jail term was "worthwhile."
"I don't mind serving the three-month jail term, because I think it is very worthwhile to have served out a sentence after pulling down the individual who has greatly harmed the country and the KMT [Chinese Nationalist Party]," Hsieh said, referring to Lee.
In March 2000, after the KMT lost the presidential election to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Hsieh was among angry protesters who demonstrated outside KMT headquarters in Taipei.
They were demanding that Lee, who was chairman of the KMT at the time, step down from his post immediately.
While saying that she had no desire to run in the next legislative election, Hsieh said that as long as they needed her, she would go out of her way to boost the campaigns of candidates in the KMT and the People First Party.
Meanwhile, Li Ao (
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
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