Wu Wen-chung (吳文忠), a prosecutor from the Supreme Prosecutor Office's Special Investigation Panel, accused the Ministry of Justice yesterday of intervening in his investigations into several cases involving Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷).
Wu said that the ministry had asked him and three other prosecutors on the panel -- Chu Chao-liang (朱朝亮), Lee Hai-lung (李海龍) and Lin Che-hui -- to present reports on their investigations of Hsieh.
Wu said the ministry's action indicated that it was attempting to interfere in the investigations.
Wu said he believed that politicians being investigated had likely asked ministry officials to intervene.
He asked how prosecutors were supposed to perform their duties if politicians were allowed to interfere with investigations.
Lee and Lin told reporters yesterday that they had handed over their reports to supervisors.
Deputy Minister of Justice Lee Chin-yung (
He said the ministry was not interfering in the investigations.
Hsieh has also accused Wu of having tried to coerce former Kaohsiung Bureau of Urban Development director Wu Meng-teh (
Wu later last night amended his remarks, saying that he had misunderstood the ministry's instructions.
Wu made his clarification after State Prosecutor-General Chen Tsung-ming (陳聰明) explained that he had given the instructions asking prosecutors to create the report.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift