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.
PHOTO: LIU HSIN-DE, TAIPEI TIMES
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.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
RSS