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Details of Chen's stock trading sent to investigators

Newly-discovered details surrounding former deputy secretary-general of the Presidential Office Chen Che-nan's (陳哲男) stock trading during office hours will be transferred to judicial investigators rather than the media, in order to uphold principle of "the presumption of innocence," the Presidential Office announced yesterday.

The release of an internal administrative investigation on inappropriate practices by Chen Che-nan last Friday has been criticized due to the lack of details surrounding "unreasonably profitable stock trading."

Although President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) demanded a serious revision of internal management on Friday after he reviewed the report, opposition parties kept questioning him about any possible cover-up.

However, the task force in charge of the investigation has refused to reveal details about the source of the money and information used by Chen Che-nan and Kao Shen-shen (高慎慎), an Accounting Department official.

Between May 2000 and May last year, Kao helped Chen Che-nan manage his personal finances, according to the task force.

Hsieh Chien-tsai (謝建財), the director-general of the Government Ethics Department, and the task force convenor, said yesterday that details will be transferred to judicial investigators rather than the media.

"We have no reason to shelter Chen Che-nan or to avoid talking about sensitive evidence. We will transfer all the related information to judicial investigators since the Presidential Office is not part of the judicial system," Hsieh said.

Hsieh said that the task force did question Kao about the source of the money used for stock trading and had an idea of the amount of total transactions. However, such information will be transferred to judicial investigators for further investigation.

"Do remember that Chen Che-nan is a suspect, while Kao is a witness being interviewed by the prosecutors," Hsieh said.

Since the release of the investigative report, the Presidential Office has been slammed by opposition parties, who have said that a lack of transparency remains one of many serious problems unsolved by Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) administration.

Some even claimed that they would expose more of the dirty activities of high-ranking officials of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

Chen Wen-tsung (陳文宗), the director-general of the Presidential Office's Department of Public Affairs, said yesterday that some opposition party figures just took advantage of the investigation to hog the media spotlight.

"We welcome new evidence. However, blackening the names of others without solid evidence is inappropriate," he said.
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