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SIP prosecutors question Wu Shu-jen, Yu Shyi-kun

The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office’s Special Investigation Panel (SIP) prosecutors questioned former first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) at her residence yesterday afternoon.

Three SIP prosecutors arrived at Wu’s residence at 1:30pm and left around 4pm, without giving details about their conversation with Wu.

After Wu was questioned, she called for the court to begin the trial process rather than holding her husband former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) incommunicado without charge, criticizing the entire case as “political persecution,” Wu’s lawyer Lee Sheng-hsiung (李勝雄) said.

Wu said that all of the money from the “special state affairs” funds was used for public purposes. She said she did not claim or use such funds because she was not a civil servant and that she had her own money at her disposal.

The wheelchair-bound Wu was indicted on Nov. 3, 2006 for using fake receipts to claim NT$14.8 million (US$460,000) in reimbursements from the president’s “special state affairs” fund between 2002 and 2006 while her husband was president.

Chen is suspected of money laundering, taking bribes, forgery and embezzling NT$15 million during his two terms in office. Chen has admitted to using false receipts to claim money from a fund set aside for national affairs, but said the money was used for “secret diplomatic missions” that he could not publicly disclose.

Earlier yesterday, former premier Yu Shyi-kun was also summoned by the SIP for questioning on his possible role in a graft investigation involving Chen and Wu.

Yu was questioned over his Cabinet’s approval of Hsinchu Science Park’s purchase of a piece of land in Longtan (龍潭), Taoyuan County, at a higher-than-market price in 2004.

Chairman of Taiwan Cement Corporation Leslie Koo (辜成允) inherited the land from his brother, and investigators found that the company wired large sums to overseas bank accounts opened by two proxies of the first family after the land was sold to Hsinchu Science Park in February 2004.

The investigators suspect that the funds were kickbacks offered by the Koo’s firms for the land deal, which was finalized at what investigators claim to be an unreasonably high price.

Koo said recently he paid a total of NT$400 million to Wu as a “commission” for the land deal. Tsai Ming-che (蔡銘哲), who has claimed to be Wu’s special aide, confessed late last month to receiving NT$100 million and NT$420 million respectively on Wu’s behalf from the two Koos in 2003.

But in a recent interrogation, Wu told the prosecutors that she actually had received only NT$90 million and NT$200 million in “political contributions.”

Yu yesterday told prosecutors that he was the authority who approved the deal on behalf of the government, but the entire deal was legal and clean, he said.
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