Former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday dismissed a magazine story alleging he received illegal donations from a Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp (KRTC) board member and others when he was mayor of Kaohsiung.
The latest edition of Next Magazine, published yesterday, said Kaohsiung Prosecutor Lo Chien-hsun (羅建勛) believed Hseih should be indicted on corruption charges.
"There was no such thing," Hsieh said when approached for comment on his way to the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) Central Standing Committee meeting.
"Those who fuel such speculation before the [DPP] presidential primary are trying to influence the result of the primary," said Hsieh, who is one of the party's four presidential hopefuls.
"I have a theory about this kind of allegation," Hsieh said. "If we are to curb this kind of nasty campaign strategy, we have to prevent [those who use] the strategy from achieving [their] goal."
Hsieh became a target of investigations into the KRTC bidding scandal in March last year.
Next said Lo -- who is in charge of the investigations into the 2002 KRTC scandal -- believes Hsieh violated the Statute for the Punishment of Corruption (貪污治罪條例).
The magazine published a copy of what it said was an official document signed by Lo that had been sent from the Black Gold Center of the Kaohsiung Bureau of the Taiwan High Court to the Ministry of Justice's Bureau of Investigation on April 3.
The story quoted the document as stating that Hsieh "received inappropriate political donations from KRTC board member Yeh Chih-chung (
The amounts of the alleged donations was not mentioned.
The story said Hsieh had failed to answer three summons from the prosecutors.
Hsieh said yesterday that he had not answered the summons because he had to go to the US early last month after his mother died.
Kaohsiung prosecutors have indicted former Presidential Office deputy secretary-general Chen Che-nan (
"The manipulation behind the story is very obvious," Hsieh's campaign office spokesman Chao Tien-lin (
DPP Chairman Yu Shyi-kun, another presidential hopeful, said he believes Hsieh is innocent.
DPP Legislator Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) told reporters that whoever leaked the information to Next was trying to influence DPP members who will vote in Sunday's primary.
He said Lo was wrong to consider Hsieh guilty of violating the Political Contribution Act (政治獻金法) because the act did not take effect until 2004.
Hsieh also ran a front-page ad in the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister paper) yesterday, saying that although "someone" was trying to discredit him, he believes the public would make its own judgment.
In other DPP developments, former Council of Labor Affairs chairman Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) was criticized yesterday over his decision to resign and start campaigning for Hsieh.
Former DPP legislator Lin Cho-shui (林濁水) said Lee's resignation on Tuesday would only harm the party's image because the public would question the appropriateness of a Cabinet member resigning because of his friendship with a presidential hopeful.
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
UNREASONABLE SURVEILLANCE: A camera targeted on an road by a neighbor captured a man’s habitual unsignaled turn into home, netting him dozens of tickets The Taichung High Administrative Court has canceled all 45 tickets given to a man for failing to use a turn signal while driving, as it considered long-term surveillance of his privacy more problematic than the traffic violations. The man, surnamed Tseng (曾), lives in Changhua County and was reported 45 times within a month for failing to signal while driving when he turned into the alley where his residence is. The reports were filed by his neighbor, who set up security cameras that constantly monitored not only the alley but also the door and yard of Tseng’s house. The surveillance occurred from July
TRADE-OFF: Beijing seeks to trade a bowl of tempura for a Chinese delicacy, an official said, while another said its promises were attempts to interfere in the polls The government must carefully consider the national security implications of building a bridge connecting Kinmen County and Xiamen, China, the Public Construction Commission (PCC) said yesterday. PCC Commissioner Derek Chen (陳金德), who is also a minister without portfolio, made the remarks in a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, after Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hsu Fu-kuei (徐富癸) asked about China’s proposal of new infrastructure projects to further connect Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties with Xiamen. China unveiled the bridge plan, along with nine other policies for Taiwan, on Sunday, the last day of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) visit
RSS