Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City Councilor Hung Chien-yi (洪健益) yesterday filed a lawsuit accusing the mayor and two other city officials of aggravated slander stemming from a dispute over the Maokong Gondola.
Hung yesterday pressed the bell in front of the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office to press charges against Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), Taipei City spokesman Chao Hsin-ping (趙心屏) and the city’s Law and Regulation Commission head Yeh Ching-yuan (葉慶元), saying they had damaged his reputation.
The city government had earlier accused Hung and a Formosa TV news reporter of fabricating a news report about the Maokong Gondola not having enough security to keep out trespassers.
The Maokong Gondola has been shut down for more than a year after landslides damaged several pillars.
The city government responded by releasing a footage from surveillance cameras showing there was a security guard in the area. Both sides then vowed to sue each other.
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Hung yesterday said the fact that the Taipei City Government recently assigned more security personnel to the Maokong Gondola and replaced a wooden door with a metal gate showed that the government admitted security was lax in the area after it was exposed by the media.
He said he was just fulfilling his duty as a city councilor in supervising the city government, but the city authorities’ allegations that he had faked a news report was unfounded and constituted slander.
“The incident has seriously damaged my reputation,” he said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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