Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) ignored the calls of pan-green legislators to resign yesterday after his allegations of first lady Wu Shu-jen's (吳淑珍) involvement in the Sogo voucher scandal turned out to be false, instead accusing the prosecutor of incompetence.
Taipei prosecutors completed their investigation into the Sogo Department store case in which Wu was accused of receiving Sogo vouchers worth millions of NT dollars in exchange for facilitating the transfer of the store's ownership, clearing Wu in the process.
A group of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers yesterday demanded that Chiu, who said he would quit if Wu was found not guilty, to keep his promise.
"Everything is clear now. Chiu Yi said on June 16 that he would resign if his allegations were wrong. He should live up to that promise," the DPP's Tsai Chi-fang (蔡啟芳) said.
DPP lawmaker Wei Ming-ku (魏明谷) and Lu Tien-lin (盧天麟) asked KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and People First People Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) to apologize as the allegations were one of the reasons they had initiated the presidential recall drive.
But Chiu, who said he didn't trust the investigation results, yesterday filed a lawsuit against Tseng Yi-sheng (
"I doubt that Tseng tried to pin any of the blame on Wu," Chiu said, adding that Tseng didn't explain who had used the majority of the Sogo vouchers, worth approximately NT$12 million.
According to the investigation results, Pacific Distribution Investment Co Chairman Lee Heng-lung (李恆隆) distributed Sogo vouchers worth NT$14.82 million to various figures during the ownership battle.
Prosecutors said that Wu indirectly received vouchers worth NT$277,000 from the first family's former doctor Huang Fang-yen (黃芳彥) and Huang received NT$2.19 million.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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