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Surgery interferes with Yen’s jail sentence

Independent Legislator Yen Ching-piao is moved to the intensive care unit yesterday following nasal surgery at Taipei Veterans General Hospital in Taipei. PHOTO: LIU HSIN-DE, TAIPEI TIMES

Taichung prosecutors yesterday declined independent Legislator Yen Ching-piao’s (顏清標) request for another delay to the beginning of his three-and-a-half year jail sentence, but have not decided what action to take.

“We must consider justice in this case. We cannot continue to grant his requests again and again or it will not be fair to others,” said Hung Pei-ken (洪培根), spokesman for the Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office.

Hung made his remarks when approached for comments on Yen’s decision to schedule an operation yesterday morning when he was supposed to report to prosecutors to begin his jail sentence at 10:30am, and his filing of a request to prosecutors for another delay.

Hung said that Yen’s defense counsel filed the application on Friday hoping to delay the sentence for another five weeks because he was planning to have surgery yesterday morning. Prosecutors eventually decided to decline the application, after talking to Yen’s doctors, but the surgery was carried out at Taipei Veterans General Hospital yesterday morning anyway.

Doctors said that Yen’s surgery was to remove a polyp from his throat. Taichung Prosecutor Tsai Wen-chuan (蔡雯娟) was present for discussions with Yen’s doctors about whether the surgery was urgent and whether he could be transferred to a prison hospital afterwards, where he could begin his jail time.

Yen was originally scheduled to begin his jail sentence on July 23, but was rushed to hospital late on July 22 after suffering a minor heart failure. The Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office granted his request to delay the beginning of his sentence to yesterday.

The Supreme Court rejected Yen’s appeal on his conviction for illegal possession of firearms in June upholding the three-and-a-half-year sentence.

The charges stem from an incident in 1996 that occurred shortly after Yen received a threatening telephone call.

His bodyguards fired at a car that he believed was following him, riddling the car with more than 40 bullets.
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