Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and his wife were urged yesterday to “stop lying” about the corruption charges they face after three of their relatives admitted to money laundering.
Chen’s son Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), his daughter-in-law Huang Jui-ching (黃睿靚) and his brother-in-law Wu Chin-mao all said that they might have been involved in money laundering on Wednesday, in the latest development in a case that has gripped the nation since Chen himself was arrested in November.
Chen Chih-chung and Huang also apologized and vowed to further cooperate with prosecutors, who have said they will summon the couple soon to help with their inquiries.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩) urged the party’s former leader and his wife to “learn something” from their son and daughter-in-law.
“Stop lying. It’s time to honestly face justice,” she said.
“I hope that all the criticism of [Chen Chih-chung and Huang] will now stop. Let justice do its job,’ Chiu said.
Other DPP lawmakers urged the public to give the couple a second chance now that they have admitted their guilt.
DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said that it took courage to admit mistakes.
“They are still young. Now that they have admitted and expressed regret for what they did, I think they deserve a second chance,” Tsai said.
However, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) called the couple’s confession a “show.”
“They were insincere and obviously forced [to plead guilty],” Lee said, adding that the couple was afraid of being detained by prosecutors and jailed.
Chen Chih-chung and Huang Jui-ching, who had previously promised prosecutors they would send US$21 million back to Taiwan from their Swiss bank accounts, said they would repatriate another US$17 million from abroad.
They also agreed to tell prosecutors the whereabouts of cash and jewelry worth around NT$600 million (US$17.88 million) that was being kept by the former first lady.
Wednesday’s twist was a blow to members of the party the former president once led.
“It is especially embarrassing to [his] supporters,” former DPP legislator Lin Cho-shui (林濁水) said.
On Monday, Chen Shui-bian insisted that he was innocent of taking bribes, as he appeared in court for a pre-trial hearing on charges he says are politically motivated.
Chen Shui-bian, who left office in May after eight years as president, has been charged with embezzlement, taking bribes and money laundering, influence peddling and blackmail and faces life in prison if convicted on all counts.
While some Taiwanese saw the move by Chen Chih-chung as an attempt to break ranks with his father, others interpreted it as just part of the family’s defense strategy aimed at reducing any eventual punishment.
The former leader has previously admitted that his wife transferred US$20 million abroad, but said the money was from past campaign funds and she had done so without his knowledge.
Meanwhile, the former first family’s physician Huang Fang-yen (黃芳彥) yesterday failed to show up in response to a summons from the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office’s Special Investigation Panels (SIP).
“We will deal with his absence according to the law,” said SIP Spokesman Chen Yun-nan (陳雲南).
Chen Yun-nan refused to say if prosecutors planned to list Huang as a defendant.
“Prosecutors need sufficient evidence to prove a person’s alleged crimes before they list them as a defendant,” he said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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