Special Investigation Panel (SIP) Spokesman Chen Yun-nan (陳雲南), of the Supreme Prosecutors Office, confirmed yesterday that former first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) submitted a document to prosecutors last week but denied the document was related to a plea bargain.
“She presented us with facts pertinent to our investigation,” Chen said. “She was not admitting to any crimes in return for a potentially shorter sentence.”
Citing a gag order, Chen declined to elaborate on the contents of the document.
“I cannot tell you what the document was related to. But I assure you that the former first lady was not admitting to anything,” Chen said.
Wu is scheduled for a two-day pre-trial hearing today and tomorrow.
The SIP indicted Wu and her husband, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), on Dec. 12 on charges of money laundering, corruption and forgery. They stand accused of embezzling NT$104 million (US$3 million) from a special presidential fund.
They are also accused of accepting NT$100 million in bribes and US$6 million in connection with a land procurement deal, as well as US$2.73 million in kickbacks to help a contractor win the tender for a government construction project.
The wheelchair-bound Wu was originally indicted on Nov. 3, 2006, for using other people’s receipts to claim NT$14.8 million in reimbursements from the president’s “special state affairs” fund between 2002 and 2006, but has missed many hearings in the case because of poor health.
Physicians and nurses from National Taiwan University Hospital will be standing by to attend to her during the hearings today and tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Chen Shui-bian will face another forgery lawsuit in addition to his other charges after the Central Election Commission (CEC) yesterday filed a suit against him at the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office. Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office Spokesman Lin Chin-chun (林錦村) confirmed that the CEC had brought the lawsuit and that prosecutors would begin investigating the case shortly.
Lin said that the CEC had filed the suit against the former president because it had discovered that Chen Shui-bian did not honestly report his election funds during the 2004 presidential election.
The false information Chen filed to the CEC caused the commission to release inaccurate background information on candidates.
Lin, however, would not comment on the case in addition to confirming it.
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