The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office’s Special Investigation Panel (SIP) yesterday appealed to the high court over the Taipei District Court’s decision last Friday to release former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) without bail.
The SIP presented the appeal to the high court yesterday afternoon.
State Public Prosecutor-General Chen Tsung-ming (陳聰明) said that prosecutors feared the former president may interfere with potential witnesses in his cases, although there was no sign that the former president would attempt to flee the country.
In addition, SIP prosecutors are still investigating corruption allegations related to the second phase of financial reform as well as secret diplomatic projects during Chen Shui-bian’s presidency. Those probes concern a large amount of money, so prosecutors wanted to keep the former president in detention, he said.
“Now that he [Chen Shui-bian] is out, our witnesses may stop talking,” Chen Tsung-ming said.
The high court will schedule a hearing to decide whether to uphold the district court’s decision to release Chen Shui-bian or ask it to re-hear the case and decide again whether he should be detained.
If the high court declines the appeal, prosecutors will need to come up with new reasons for any further detention requests.
Meanwhile, Chen Shui-bian’s office yesterday dismissed allegations that the former president had blamed former interior minister Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲) for revealing information soon after his detention.
Yu was detained on Oct. 15 in relation to an investigation into allegations of corruption involving the former first family and the construction of the Nangang Exhibition Hall. He made statements implicating former first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) and other potential defendants in the case and was released on Nov. 27.
Yu was indicted earlier this month for his alleged involvement in irregularities related to the construction of the hall.
Instead of complaining about Yu’s confession, Chen looked at the issue with a forgiving attitude, the office said yesterday in a press release.
“People related to the cases must give out confessions against Chen and other potential defendants to strive for their release from detention. It’s human nature and totally understandable,” the office said.
A story in yesterday’s Chinese-language China Times said Chen had complained to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators on Monday that Yu testified against Wu only two days after being detained.
Chen condemned the government for violating human rights with pretrial detentions, saying that he could only leave his cell for five minutes every day.
“Detention causes great harm to the detainees, both physically and mentally. It is torture and those who have never been in such a situation would never understand,” the office said.
The former president urged the court to release former National Security Council secretary-general Chiou I-jen (邱義仁) and former Bureau of Investigation director-general Yeh Sheng-mao (葉盛茂).
DPP legislators yesterday also rebutted the report.
DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said that the former president had merely expressed his opinion that prosecutors were detaining people in his case to obtain statements, and it could be classed as a form of torture, and that prosecutors had used such tactics to extract Yu’s confession.
DPP Legislator Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩) told reporters that Yu would not have done anything wrong if the former president’s wife had not pressured him to do so.
“I call on members of Chen Shui-bian’s family, particularly Wu Shu-jen, to face the trial earnestly. I hope Wu will not tell any more lies and not play with the feelings of DPP members,” she said.
Additional reporting by Rich Chang
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching