DPP heavyweights slam March 19 committee report

High-ranking Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials yesterday blasted the investigation report released by the March 19 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee as "absurd, ridiculous and unreasonable."

Before the DPP's weekly Central Standing Committee held yesterday afternoon, DPP government heavyweights were asked to comment on the newly-released investigation report. The report stated that the shooting of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) may have been manipulated and advised the Legislative Yuan to recall Chen and Lu from their offices.

"The Presidential Office feels sorry that the March 19 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee members came to such conclusions without much scientific evidence," Presidential Secretary-General Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said yesterday.

Su pointed out that although the members of the investigation committee have their own professional specialties, they are not forensic experts.

"I wonder how the commission members could reach conclusions that are so absurd, ridiculous and unreasonable," Su said.

Su stated that according to the scientific evidence discovered by forensic expert Henry Lee (李昌鈺) and the National Police Agency's Criminal Investigation Bureau, Chen and Lu were proven to be victims of an assassination attempt.

"Moreover, the Council of Grand Justices has already ruled that the 319 Truth Investigation Commission is unconstitutional, and that many operations of the commission are considered to be unlawful," Su said.

"I couldn't detect the professional training of the commission members in this investigation report, only their emotions of hatred and grievance," Su said.

Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said that the investigation report's conclusions lacked any hard evidence to back them up, but were rather based on imaginative reasoning alone.

"A reasoning game could interpret the March 19 assassination attempt on Chen and Lu as a self-staged show or an assassination by other political parties," Hsieh said.

"Such a report could be produced as an Internet game."

Meanwhile, DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) denounced Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) for being so unfair that he allowed the investigation report to be listed on the legislative agenda this Thursday, ignoring legislative regulations.

Ker said that if the investigation report is to be reviewed in the legislative session tomorrow, the commission should have submitted it to the Legislative Yuan before noon Monday.

However, the investigation report was not released until Monday afternoon.

"Wang disregarded the legislative agenda and forced the procedure committee to add the investigation report to Thursday's session," Ker said.

"It is unacceptable for a legislature to review a biased investigation report that was conducted by an unconstitutional committee," Ker said.

When asked whether the investigation report will affect cooperation between the DPP and People First Party, Ker said he did not think so, because the committee's power will be diminished when a new legislature convenes next month.