Whether or not Presidential Secretary-General Mark Chen (
Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General Cho Jung-tai (
Duty
When pressed by opposition committee members, Cho said that he was personally willing to testify in keeping with the spirit of the Criminal Procedure Code (
The Taipei District Court has asked Chen and four other members of the presidential staff to testify tomorrow to shed light on President Chen Shui-bian's (
The court wants to determine whether the individuals know anything about the fund, part of which the president claims to have spent on secret diplomatic projects.
Punishment
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) warned that Mark Chen could be fined NT$30,000 if he is absent for no good reason and that the court could issue a warrant for the presidential secretary-general.
Lai said that Mark Chen would set a very bad public example by not testifying and that he could be willfully obstructing the court session to protect President Chen. The president has pledged to step down if his wife, Wu Shu-jen (
Cho said it was a waste of time for the committee to speculate on Mark Chen's intentions.
KMT Legislator Tsao Erh-chang (曹爾忠) said that if President Chen had been honest about the "state affairs fund," Cho, Mark Chen and National Security Council Secretary-General Chiou I-jen (邱義仁) had failed to do a good job of advising the president.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hsieh Hsin-ni (
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
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