Kaohsiung prosecutors are investigating former premier Frank Hsieh (
Hsieh has been in prosecutors' sights ever since the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp (KRTC) scandal came to light. Prosecutors have said that they are still investigating to determine whether Hsieh had any involvement in the scandal.
Chang Hsueh-ming (
A Japanese official from Taisei named Ryoji Kikawa has been detained, along with a man named Chen Chien-ting (
Chang Hsueh-ming said the Kaohsiung District Court rejected prosecutors' application to keep Chang chi-jung in custody, but released him on bail of NT$300,000.
Chang Chi-jung was the chair of the New Culture Foundation established by Hsieh in 1991, the prosecutor added.
The prosecutor said authorities were trying to discover where the bribe went and whether Hsieh was involved in the corruption because of his close ties to Chang Chi-jung.
Prosecutors discovered in June 2002 that Kikawa, Chen and Chang Chi-jung dined together at a restaurant in Taipei.
Also, two commissioners from a five-member committee that conducted six public bids for the Kaohsiung MRT construction project, as well as former director of Kaohsiung City's Bureau of Urban Development Wu Meng-te (
Three months later, the Japanese firm was awarded the largest of the six projects. Prosecutors said that the bids for the six projects were flawed and skewed in favor of the Japanese firm, because the firm won the NT$8 billion contract despite the fact that RSEA Engineering Co offered a bid that was NT$2.7 billion lower.
They said city officials had rigged the bidding so that any company that won two of the six auctions could not take part in the rest. They are also suspected of manipulating the bidding process by holding the auctions for smaller projects first.
When RSEA Engineering Co won the first two smaller bids, it was forced out of the game for the bigger auctions, prosecutors said.
Five people, including Wu and Chung, were indicted for corruption and breach of trust last November, along with former deputy secretary-general to the Presidential Office Chen Che-nan (
Meanwhile, Hsieh yesterday expressed his disapproval over comparisons between his relationship with Chang Chi-jung and President Chen Shui-bian's (
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
RSS