Former Presidential Office deputy secretary-general Ma Yung-cheng (
Taipei District Prosecutors' Office spokesman Lin Pang-liang (
The questioning was part of a probe into a snowballing scandal involving President Chen Shui-bian's (
PHOTO: CNA
"We summoned Ma to better understand the process by which Su Teh-jien (
Former finance minister Lin Chuan (
Prosecutors then decided to bring in Ma for questioning.
Lin said prosecutors hoped to learn whether Ma represented the Presidential Office when he made the suggestion about the appointment, or whether he acted on his own, implying a potential conflict of interest or involvement in corruption.
Last August, the state-owned Bank of Taiwan organized a syndicated loan totaling NT$16.5 billion (US$515.1 million) for TDC. The deal, which involved 29 banks, was overseen by the Ministry of Finance.
Prosecutors doubt the legitimacy of the syndicated loan, given TDC's capital of NT$3 billion (US$94 million). They also suspect that the terms of the loan agreement were flawed and that it should never have been approved.
The loan is at the center of the investigation into alleged insider trading involving Chao. Prosecutors suspect that Chao gained inside information about the loan, and then purchased TDC shares through an account held by his mother. Chao then profited when TDC's share price soared after the loan was made public.
Su, a former official of the Bank of Taiwan, was appointed TDC chairman on June 1 last year. Prosecutors suspect that bribery may have been involved in Su's appointment, which was approved by the ministry.
Meanwhile, the chairman of state-run Taiwan Cooperative Bank, Sean Chen (陳沖), a former vice minister of finance, was also summoned for questioning as a witness for the prosecution yesterday.
Prosecutors suspected that a NT$27 million (US$841,700) deposit into the bank account of Chao's father was a bribe for Chao's help in aiding the president of Nice Group Chen Jer-fang (
Prosecutors alleged that Chao had made several phone calls to Sean Chen, asking Taiwan Cooperative Bank, which has a substantial stake in Waterland, to cast its vote in favor of Chen Jer-fang for chairmanship of Waterland. However, the bank's representative did not vote for Chen Jer-fang.
Sean Chen was later released.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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