A former chief of the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau admitted on the weekend that he had failed to share information about suspected money laundering involving the former first family with prosecutors before his retirement.
Yeh Sheng-mao (葉盛茂) confessed to his mistake amid media reports that the bureau’s Money Laundering Prevention Center had received information from the Cayman Islands in late January that former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) daughter-in-law, Huang Jui-ching (黃睿靚), had a bank account there and that it was likely being used for money laundering.
The Ministry of Justice, however, did not inform local prosecutors of the intelligence until recently.
DOCUMENTS
Yeh, who retired from the top post at the bureau after the inauguration of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government in May, confirmed in a written statement on Saturday that he had not delivered any formal documents concerning the sensitive information to the prosecution before his retirement because of “personal negligence.”
He said, however, that he had verbally apprised State Public Prosecutor-General Chen Tsung-ming (陳聰明) of the information in a meeting in early February.
“At the time, Chen Tsung-ming said that if no concrete evidence was available, the bureau could deal with it on its own. Therefore, I did not pass the formal documents to him,” Yeh said in the statement.
In the ensuing months, Yeh recalled that the matter was shelved because of the presidential election in March.
RETIREMENT
After the election, in which Chen Shui-bian’s Democratic Progressive Party was defeated, Yeh said he was preoccupied with retirement formalities and did not bother to address the issue.
Yeh said he had instructed the Money Laundering Prevention Center to remain in contact with the source in the Cayman Islands, adding that the matter was not tackled before his retirement partly because no further information was received from the source.
Yeh denied allegations he had leaked the information to the former first family, or that he had insisted that the information be kept confidential.
Yeh apologized to the public, the ministry and the bureau, as well as to Chen Tsung-ming for his “personal negligence” in handling the matter.
In response, Chen Tsung-ming denied he had ever been briefed by Yeh on the sensitive information and urged Yeh to own up to his mistakes.
Prosecutors investigating the case said they would summon Yeh for questioning later this month to determine whether he breached any laws by failing to share the information from the Cayman Islands with the prosecution in a timely manner.
Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) told reporters yesterday that she had provided all related information to the Taipei Public Prosecutors Office so that it could determine whether former Yeh should be prosecuted.
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