The verdict in the slander suit against former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) by retired Vice Admiral Lei Hsueh-ming (雷學明) will be handed down on Sept. 9, after the last hearing at the Taipei District Court yesterday.
“I did nothing wrong because I never named anyone when making the accusation,” Chen said at the hearing.
The case was filed in late 2005 after Chen, speaking on a TV talk show, accused “five retired Navy officers” of accepting kickbacks to produce false performance data on Lafayette frigates and inflate the price of the vessels to influence the Navy’s 1990 purchase of frigates from France, rather than from South Korea as planned.
PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES
Democratic Progressive Party legislators Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) and William Lai (賴清德) repeated the accusations at a press conference.
Led by Lei, the retired officers — including two admirals, two captains and one commander — filed the suit against Chen, Hsu and Lai, asking for compensation of NT$2.01 billion (US$67 million).
The three defendants said they had only “speculated” that “five retired Navy officers” had taken bribes, but did not name names.
“We simply made reasonable speculation on the case, so it is not slander,” Chen said.
Hsu and Lai said they should have lawmakers’ immunity as they had made their accusation during a press conference at the legislature.
Lei told judges that the speculation was ridiculous.
“It was former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) who decided to buy the Lafayette frigates, not me. Also, I had been retired for more than two years when former Navy Captain Yin Ching-feng (尹清楓) was killed, so I had nothing to do with this,” Lei said. “Since the defendants could not provide sufficient evidence to prove their speculation, that is slander.”
Yin was head of the Navy’s Arms Acquisition Office. His body was found floating in the sea off the east coast of Taiwan on Dec. 9, 1993. Yin is believed to have been about to blow the whistle on colleagues taking kickbacks. His death prompted an investigation into irregularities surrounding the purchase of the frigates from France.
The Ministry of Finance this afternoon announced the winning numbers for the March-April uniform invoice lottery. The winning number for the NT$10 million (US$318,060) special prize is 19531471, and the winning number for the NT$2 million grand prize is 85941329. Three numbers were drawn for the NT$200,000 first prize: 07225810, 20231230 and 83518781. Those with receipts matching the last seven digits of any of the first-prize numbers will win the NT$40,000 second prize, while those matching the last six digits will win the NT$10,000 third prize. Those whose receipts match the last five digits of the first-prize numbers can claim the NT$4,000 fourth prize,
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