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.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
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