The Taipei District Court yesterday summoned former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) for a slander suit brought against him, making him the first former president subpoenaed as a defendant in a criminal case.
Chen did not appear in court, citing a pre-arranged engagement. His lawyer did not specify what the event was. The court said it would bring him to court for questioning if he did it again without cause.
Retired vice admiral Lei Hsueh-ming (雷學明), retired rear admiral Wang Chin-sheng (王琴生) and three others filed a defamation suit against Chen, DPP Legislator William Lai (賴清德) and former DPP legislator Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) for allegedly claiming that Lei and the others accepted kickbacks in connection with the purchase of frigates.
Hsu was the only defendant to show up yesterday. Chen’s lawyer said that Chen’s secretary told him that the summons was at short notice and that he could not make it because he had other arrangements.
The judge, however, rebuffed this, saying that Chen received the summons on May 23 and he had not clearly specified the reason for his absence. The judge asked Chen’s lawyer to tell Chen that the court has the right to bring him in for questioning if he ignores a subpoena without cause.
Chen’s office yesterday expressed regret over the litigation, saying that Chen simply questioned the flow of the kickbacks and never alleged Lei had taken cash.
The statement said Chen, in an interview with ETTV in 2005, said that he began investigating the case when he was a legislator and was glad to be re-elected so he could continue probing the deal, which he claimed involved NT$15 billion (US$500 million) in kickbacks.
Chen said the government’s original plan in 1988 was to purchase South Korean-made frigates. But on a trip to France in May 1989, former premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村) asked the navy to suspend the plan, and the government decided in 1990 to purchase the French-made ships.
Andrew Wang (汪傳浦), the key suspect in the kickback scandal, fled the country following the murder of naval captain Yin Ching-feng (尹清楓) in 1993. Yin is believed to have been about to blow the whistle on colleagues taking kickbacks. Wang has been charged in absentia with murder, corruption, money laundering and fraud.
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