The Tainan District Court on Wednesday found former deputy minister of the National Science Council Shieh Ching-jyh (謝清志) innocent of corruption charges.
Ten defendants, including Shieh and Hsu Hung-chang (許鴻章), owner of Sheus Technologies Corp —also known as Hung Hua Engineering — were indicted in 2006, accused of corruption by a rival bidder after Sheus won an NT$8.05 billion (US$262 million) construction tender to reduce the vibrations caused by the high speed rail as it passes through the Southern Taiwan Science Park.
High-tech companies with operations in the park, such as chip manufacturers, are extremely sensitive to vibrations above 48 decibels.
Hsu was sentenced to five months in prison, while the judges decided to drop all charges against the rest of the defendants.
“There was insufficient evidence to prove Shieh’s guilt. Therefore the court had no option other than to rule in favor of him,” the verdict read.
In comments on his blog after the verdict was issued, Shieh, who claimed the charges were politically motivated in an attempt to discredit the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration, said: “The damage and insults from the last two years cannot be erased, but the verdict of the first trial has proven the innocence of all the defendants involved.”
In response to the verdict, Tainan prosecutors said that they would file an appeal to the high court.
“We will appeal to the high court after a careful review of the verdict. It is just a matter of when,” said Prosecutor Kao Feng-chi (高峰祈), who was in charge of the probe.
The district court’s verdict raised eyebrows as prosecutors had suggested a 15-year sentence and a fine of NT$30 million (US$1 million) for Shieh when the indictment was submitted on Dec. 25, 2006.
‘UNAFRAID’: Most Taiwanese do not seem to be aware of the danger of war and might be unprepared, a KMT legislator said of the poll by an affiliated foundation Nearly 60 percent of Taiwanese believe that a war between Taiwan and China is “unlikely” or “impossible,” a survey released yesterday by the National Policy Foundation showed. The survey asked participants if they thought there was a possibility of war between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait based on recent developments, said the foundation, which is affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). While 42.5 percent of respondents thought it was “unlikely” and 17.1 percent believed it was “impossible,” 5.1 percent said it was “very likely” and 17.2 percent said it was “fairly possible,” the survey showed. Another 18.2 percent gave
The Kaohsiung Prosecutors’ Office on Monday indicted a Chinese sea captain over his alleged involvement in the killing of four pirates at sea in 2012, while serving as the captain of a Taiwanese fishing vessel. The suspect, identified by the media as 43-year-old Wang Fengyu (汪峰裕), was charged with homicide and breaches of the Controlling Guns, Ammunition and Knives Act (槍砲彈藥刀械管制條例), the indictment read. Wang asked two Pakistani mercenaries that he hired as acting captain of the Kaohsiung-registered Ping Shin No. 101 to fire on and kill four suspected Somalian pirates in the Indian Ocean off the Somalian coast on Sept. 29,
UPGRADE: The system is more efficient than others, which typically involve longer procedures that can produce pseudo-positive or pseudo-negative results The National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center yesterday unveiled an infrared wax physisorption kinetics imaging system, which it said efficiently detects 10 types of cancer. Through scanning tissue section samples, the imaging system can detect colon, breast, stomach, oral, ovarian, cervical, prostate and skin cancer, as well as neuroendocrine tumors and glioblastoma, center associate research fellow Lee Yao-chang (李耀昌) told a news conference in Taipei. The system uses paraffin and beeswax with organic solutions as developers for its infrared imaging device, which can mark abnormal polysaccharides on the surface of cancer cells in six to 15 minutes, while the wax is absorbed by
China is trying to convince Taiwanese that an authoritarian system is preferable to democracy, the Information Operations Research Group (IORG) said at a conference yesterday. China has been employing Taiwanese sympathetic to its “united front” tactics to help spread disinformation about democracy and Taiwanese society through social media, television programs, YouTube and by other means, the group said at the conference to promote public awareness of China’s cognitive warfare campaign. In the group’s latest report, it highlighted eight disinformation discussions that its researchers listed under three main topics: flu viruses in the US are deadlier than COVID-19; US troop movements caused the
RSS