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MOJ indicted 9,889 people for corruption

The Ministry of Justice yesterday announced that prosecutors had indicted 9,889 people for corruption since the country began cracking down on the problem in 2000.

The ministry said that from July 2000 to April this year, prosecutors had brought 3,800 corruption cases to court and a total of 9,889 people had been indicted.

This represented an average of 46 corruption cases and 121 people sent to court each month.

Over the years, prosecutors have recovered more than NT$29.1 billion (US$882.1 million) in dirty money.

The ministry said that among the 9,889 people taken to court, 544 were senior government officials, 591 were elected officials, 1,750 were mid-level government officials, 2,940 were lower level civil servants and 4,064 were contractual employees.

Senior and elected officials accounted for 11.47 percent of the individuals indicted, the ministry said.

Among the 9,889 individuals, 3,612 had received a final verdict with 2,070 found guilty.

The DPP government established the Black Gold Investigation Center under the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors' Office in 2001.

The agency was in charge of fighting serious corruption and corruption involving high-level officials.

The center was disbanded this year after the government established the special investigation section under the Supreme Prosecutors Office in April.

Justice Minister Morley Shih (施茂林) yesterday said the statistics showed that prosecutors have made progress in cracking down on corruption in politics and the ministry pledged to continue to clean up politics.

Earlier this year Taipei prosecutors indicted former Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) over his misuse of the discretionary special allowance fund during his term as Taipei mayor between 1998 and last year.

The Supreme Prosecutors' Office is also probing several prominent Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) figures over their use of public discretionary special allowance funds.

The subjects of the probe include Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), former premier and currently DPP Chairman Yu Shyi-kun, former premier and DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and National Security Council Secretary-General Mark Chen (陳唐山).

Hsieh was also summoned last week for questioning by prosecutors from the special investigation section over his acceptance of political donations during his two campaigns for Kaoshiung mayor.

Hsieh has declared his innocence in regard to the donation issue.
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