No concrete ruling was handed down by the presiding judge yesterday after lawyers and prosecutors presented their cases for the deposition of a key witness in former Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou's (
Judges, Ma's lawyers and prosecutors yesterday examined visual and audio recordings of the interrogation of a witness in the case to determine whether the prosecutor's transcript of the witness testimony was accurate.
Ma's lawyer Song Yao-ming (宋耀明) has accused prosecutor Hou Kuan-jen (侯寬仁) of forgery, claiming that a deposition of a witness Wu Li-ju (吳麗洳), a Taipei City Government treasurer, was not an accurate record of her statement.
Song yesterday questioned why Wu answered Hou's questions twice with "I don't know" or "I forgot," but Hou wrote down "that is right" or "yes."
Hou responded by rejecting the accusation, saying that written testimony is not prepared in a question-and-answer format because its main purpose is to keep an account of the true opinions of witnesses.
Hou said it would not be accurate to compare the recording of the questioning with the written testimony because Wu sometimes answered questions via body language such as nodding.
The deposition was handed over to Wu for confirmation after the questioning was over, he added.
Song yesterday told the court that after the reexamination found the deposition flawed, he requested that yesterday's re-writing of Hou's questioning must replace the original written statement.
Prosecutors in the hearing, however, claimed the deposition is correctly written.
Presiding Judge Tsai Shou-hsun (
Ma, the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) presidential candidate, is on trial for allegedly misusing a special mayoral allowance fund during his eight years as Taipei mayor and embezzling NT$11 million (US$333,000).
He has not contested that he took the special allowance for personal use.
Prosecutors have said that between December 1998 and last July, Ma wired half of his monthly special allowance -- NT$170,000 -- directly to a personal account.
They also found that Ma had NT$11,176,227 in bank accounts belonging to himself and his wife.
Beijing could eventually see a full amphibious invasion of Taiwan as the only "prudent" way to bring about unification, the US Department of Defense said in a newly released annual report to Congress. The Pentagon's "Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2025," was in many ways similar to last year’s report but reorganized the analysis of the options China has to take over Taiwan. Generally, according to the report, Chinese leaders view the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities for a Taiwan campaign as improving, but they remain uncertain about its readiness to successfully seize
Taiwan is getting a day off on Christmas for the first time in 25 years. The change comes after opposition parties passed a law earlier this year to add or restore five public holidays, including Constitution Day, which falls on today, Dec. 25. The day marks the 1947 adoption of the constitution of the Republic of China, as the government in Taipei is formally known. Back then the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) governed China from Nanjing. When the KMT, now an opposition party in Taiwan, passed the legislation on holidays, it said that they would help “commemorate the history of national development.” That
Taiwan has overtaken South Korea this year in per capita income for the first time in 23 years, IMF data showed. Per capita income is a nation’s GDP divided by the total population, used to compare average wealth levels across countries. Taiwan also beat Japan this year on per capita income, after surpassing it for the first time last year, US magazine Newsweek reported yesterday. Across Asia, Taiwan ranked fourth for per capita income at US$37,827 this year due to sustained economic growth, the report said. In the top three spots were Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong, it said. South
Snow fell on Yushan (Jade Mountain, 玉山) yesterday morning as a continental cold air mass sent temperatures below freezing on Taiwan’s tallest peak, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Snowflakes were seen on Yushan’s north peak from 6:28am to 6:38am, but they did not fully cover the ground and no accumulation was recorded, the CWA said. As of 7:42am, the lowest temperature recorded across Taiwan was minus-5.5°C at Yushan’s Fengkou observatory and minus-4.7°C at the Yushan observatory, CWA data showed. On Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County, a low of 1.3°C was recorded at 6:39pm, when ice pellets fell at Songsyue Lodge (松雪樓), a
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