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Prosecutors say former ministers may be indicted

Prosecutors said yesterday that investigations into several former ministers' use of their discretionary fund were nearing completion and several former officials may be indicted for corruption.

Prosecutors from the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office yesterday said that they had interviewed some 10 former ministers from the former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government on Friday.

These include former minister of justice Morley Shih (施茂林), former minister of economic affairs Steve Chen (陳瑞隆), former minister of the interior Lee Yi-yang (李逸洋) and former minister of transportation and communications Tsai Duei (蔡堆).

Prosecutors said that some of these former officials were suspected of using fraudulent receipts to claim reimbursements from their special allowance fund in violation of the Criminal Law.

Prosecutors said they also planned to interview Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials who served before 2000 on their use of discretionary funds.

These would include then premier Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) and vice premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄). Siew is now the vice president and Liu the premier.

The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office on September indicted former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), former DPP chairman Yu Shyi-kun and former National Security Council secretary-general Mark Chen (陳唐山) on suspicion of misusing their special allowance funds.

Lu, Yu and Chen were charged with corruption and forgery. Their cases are pending in the Taipei District Court.

Then KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) faced similar charges early last year. Prosecutors accused him of misusing a special fund while serving as Taipei mayor from 1998 to last year.

A district court accepted his argument that by law the fund was an official subsidy and acquitted him in August.
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