The Control Yuan yesterday voted to impeach Lin Sheng-lin (林聖霖), a former prosecutor with the Taitung District Prosecutors Office, for various irregularities that harmed the image of prosecutors, Control Yuan member Chao Chang-ping (趙昌平) said yesterday.
Chao said that Control Yuan members unanimously passed the impeachment motion, rendering the severest punishment to the misbehaving prosecutor.
EXTORTION
Lin was indicted by prosecutors last month on corruption charges. He was accused of extorting money from suspects and leaking information on investigations.
The Control Yuan said that investigations showed that Lin had offered not to indict suspects in return for money in two cases, took advantage of his official position to search telephone call records for his friends and charged plaintiffs fees for helping them write civil and criminal lawsuit petitions.
The Control Yuan found that Lin and his friend Wu Tung-sheng (吳東昇) reached out to people in need of legal consultation by setting up a legal aid foundation in the name of providing legal services.
VIOLATIONS
These irregularities constituted violations of the Criminal Code (刑法), the Civil Servants Work Act (公務員服務法) and the Act for Punishment of Corruption (貪汙治罪條例), Chao said.
The Control Yuan has impeached four judges and nine prosecutors in 11 cases since the watchdog started work last August after being dormant for more than three years.
Chao said the Control Yuan would forward the case to the Judicial Yuan’s Committee on the Discipline of Public Functionaries and hoped the committee would deal with the case immediately.
REASSIGNMENT
Lin was reassigned from the Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office in Taipei to the Taitung District Prosecutors’ Office in August last year because he had too many unresolved cases.
He was then placed under surveillance by the office’s ethics office after noting that he had either let cases pile up or dismissed many of them.
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
Nipah virus infection is to be officially listed as a category 5 notifiable infectious disease in Taiwan in March, while clinical treatment guidelines are being formulated, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. With Nipah infections being reported in other countries and considering its relatively high fatality rate, the centers on Jan. 16 announced that it would be listed as a notifiable infectious disease to bolster the nation’s systematic early warning system and increase public awareness, the CDC said. Bangladesh reported four fatal cases last year in separate districts, with three linked to raw date palm sap consumption, CDC Epidemic Intelligence
Two Taiwanese prosecutors were questioned by Chinese security personnel at their hotel during a trip to China’s Henan Province this month, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. The officers had personal information on the prosecutors, including “when they were assigned to their posts, their work locations and job titles,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said. On top of asking about their agencies and positions, the officers also questioned the prosecutors about the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement, a pact that serves as the framework for Taiwan-China cooperation on combating crime and providing judicial assistance, Liang
US climber Alex Honnold left Taiwan this morning a day after completing a free-solo ascent of Taipei 101, a feat that drew cheers from onlookers and gained widespread international attention. Honnold yesterday scaled the 101-story skyscraper without a rope or safety harness. The climb — the highest urban free-solo ascent ever attempted — took just more than 90 minutes and was streamed live on Netflix. It was covered by major international news outlets including CNN, the New York Times, the Guardian and the Wall Street Journal. As Honnold prepared to leave Taiwan today, he attracted a crowd when he and his wife, Sanni,
RSS