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MOFA to investigate role of envoy in funds scandal

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will launch an investigation to determine whether the nation’s representative to Switzerland, George Liu (劉寬平), was derelict in his duty when he failed to immediately forward to Taipei a request by Swiss authorities to check the bank accounts of the son and daughter-in-law of former president Chen Shu-bian (陳水扁), a ministry spokesman said.

Liu’s resignation was officially signed off by the Executive Yuan last Saturday. The ministry insisted that the timing of the resignation had nothing to do with the recent scandal, saying the ministry had approved Liu’s resignation in June.

“We will definitely look into the matter to see if Liu committed any administrative error. It might be too harsh to call it a punishment, but if he is found guilty of any wrongdoing, we will take the necessary action in line with the Law on Discipline of Civil Servants (公務人員懲戒法),” ministry spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said.

Critics have blamed Liu for delaying the investigation by holding on to the request for judicial assistance by the Federal Department of Justice and Police of the Swiss Confederation for 10 days before contacting the ministry.

Swiss authorities were alerted by Merrill Lynch Bank (Suisse) earlier this year when the bank suspected former president’s son Chen Chih-chung (陳致中) and daughter-in-law Huang Jui-ching (黃睿靚) of money laundering.

Early last month, the Federal Department of Justice and Police notified Taiwan’s Swiss representative office to request judicial assistance from Taipei. The letter had been translated into Chinese by the Swiss before handing it to the representative office.

In an interview with the Central News Agency, Liu admitted to full knowledge of the letter’s contents, but vehemently denied that he stalled the process in order to tip off the former president or members of his family.

Liu also said that he did not think it was an urgent request, so instead of informing the ministry immediately, he instructed the office to send the letter back via ordinary mail, which took seven working days.

Liu’s office received the letter early last month. He flew back to Taipei late last month to meet and submit his resignation to Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊) on July 29.

“It would be a reasonable deduction to say that Liu never mentioned anything about the Swiss’ request when he was in Taipei last month,” the spokesman said.

Liu will serve two more months before he is officially relieved of his duty. He will be replaced by Hsieh Fa-dah (謝發達), the former deputy of Ministry of Economic Affairs.
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