The Special Investigation Panel (SIP) of the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office yesterday rebutted allegations that the former first family’s physician, Huang Fang-yen (黃芳彥) was a defendant in the alleged money-laundering case involving the family and would soon return to Taiwan to testify against others.
“He [Huang] has not contacted us. Besides, he is still only a witness in the case,” SIP Spokesman Chen Yun-nan (陳雲南) said.
Chen was approached for comment yesterday after the Chinese-language China Times yesterday reported that through State Public Prosecutor-General Chen Tsung-ming’s (陳聰明) connections, Huang had promised the SIP to return soon and testify against “other defendants” in the money laundering case.
Chen said rumors like this were complicating investigations.
“We will not confirm untrue stories,” he said. “These kinds of stories have seriously hampered our progress.”
Chen said Huang would have to be a defendant in the case to testify against “other defendants,” yet Huang remained a witness.
Chen said SIP prosecutors had confiscated NT$10 million (US$300,000) in cash from Huang’s office on Dec. 16 last year.
Prosecutors were trying to figure out who the money belonged to and whether it was secured through illegal means. Prosecutors have yet to summons Huang, he said.
Meanwhile, after filing an appeal on Monday against his detention, former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) lawyers yesterday submitted an attachment with additional arguments to the High Court.
Lawyer Shih Yi-ling (石宜琳) said SIP prosecutors were not authorized to file a detention request against a defendant once the defendant had been indicted and transferred to the court.
In addition, Shih said the Taipei District Court’s merger of the cases concerning the former president had violated procedures.
Also yesterday, the Taipei District Court turned down the lawyers’ request for a change in judges.
Taipei District Court Spokesman Huang Chun-ming (黃俊明) said the request to remove a judge would be granted only when there is evidence that the judge may be biased because of a close or improper relationship with either prosecutors or defense lawyers.
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
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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