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Six DPP members indicted over Hsieh headquarter ‘raid’

Six Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members were indicted by the Taipei Prosecutors’ Office on Friday for blocking a police car from leaving the DPP’s presidential campaign headquarters in March when four Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators clashed with DPP supporters.

The indicted were DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh’s (謝長廷) campaign manager Lee Ying-yuan (李應元), DPP Legislator Lee Chun-yi (李俊毅), former legislators Hsieh Hsin-ni (謝欣霓) and Lin Kuo-ching (林國慶), and Taipei City councilors Chuang Ruei-hsiung (莊瑞雄) and Hung Chiang-yi (洪健益).

The six were indicted on charges of interfering with a public function and violating personal liberties.

The incident took place on March 12 when KMT legislators Alex Fai (費鴻泰), Chen Chieh (陳杰), Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) and Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) barged into Hsieh’s campaign office in Taipei with allegations that First Commercial Bank had waived the rental fees of the office.

The legislators clashed with Hsieh supporters, who accused the legislators of trespassing. A melee soon broke out when supporters attempted to block police cars from escorting the KMT lawmakers away from the site.

Prosecutors argued the six broke the law by leading supporters into preventing the KMT lawmakers from leaving. DPP caucus whip William Lai (賴清德) disagreed.

Lai said the prosecutors were biased, as none of the KMT legislators involved in the incident were indicted. The intruders were spared, while those who sought to prevent the intruders from entering private property were indicted, he said.

Prosecutor Huang Mo-hsin ( 黃謀信) said the four KMT legislators were not indicted for trespassing because they had been inspecting the site according to a resolution passed by the legislative Finance Committee and were accompanied by the then finance minister and First Commercial Bank officials.

Asked for comment on the indictments, Alex Fai (費鴻泰), who was criticized for leading the raid on Hsieh's headquarters, said the prosecutors had cleared his name and that of the others who conducted the inspection with him.
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