Ligi Lee (李慧芬), a key figure in the embezzlement allegations surrounding the first family, is not sure whether receipts she gave to her cousin Lee Bi-chun (李碧君) were passed on to first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍), prosecutors said yesterday.
Lee on Monday gave prosecutors copies of a number of receipts which she said had been given to her cousin and the first lady to be used to seek reimbursements from the Presidential Office secret slush fund.
"Ligi Lee told prosecutors that her cousin Lee Bi-chun had told her that the receipts would be submitted to Wu for reimbursement, but she was not sure whether those receipts were in fact given to Wu," Taiwan High Court Prosecutors' Office spokesman Chang Wen-cheng (張文政) told reporters yesterday.
Her statements add up to no more than hearsay and are not direct evidence, Chang said, adding that prosecutors would continue their search for evidence.
Ligi Lee left the Black Gold Investigation Center of the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors' Office yesterday morning after being questioned for 15 hours.
During the questioning, prosecutors asked her to confirm that she had made the purchases for which the receipt had been handed to her cousin, Chang said.
Although prosecutors had asked the Australia-based fashion designer not to hold a press conference to avoid revealing sensitive investigation information to the media, Ligi Lee nonetheless held a press conference at her hotel in Taipei yesterday.
"After talking to prosecutors, I came to believe that they are taking the case very seriously. The evidence they have gathered is ahead of my contribution," she told the press conference.
"I did not come back to Taiwan to oppose President Chen Shui-bian (
She said she gave prosecutors copies of a number of receipts from the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Taipei, Sogo Department Store and other businesses amounting to more than NT$7 million (US$214,700).
Lee arrived in Taipei from Australia on Sunday night and plans to stay about one week.
Wu has been accused of pocketing cash from a Presidential Office slush fund by turning in receipts given to her by Lee Bi-chun.
Lee Bi-chun has been banned from leaving the country.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods