The Taipei District Court on Thursday acquitted Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Pan Meng-an (潘孟安) on charges of injuring former Department of Health (DOH) minister Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) in a scuffle at the legislature last year.
In the ruling, the district court judge ruled that Pan was innocent, saying that evidence such as video footage provided by TV news channels showed that former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Chang Sho-wen (張碩文) was the biggest offender in the scuffle.
The judge said that the prosecutors’ decision not to indict Chang raised doubts about their political neutrality.
On Oct. 3 last year, Yeh was caught in a scuffle as lawmakers tried to prevent him from leaving the legislature after a meeting with bakery owners over the government’s response to the health scare over melamine-contaminated food from China.
The KMT caucus accused Pan and DPP Legislator Su Chen-ching (蘇震清) of grabbing the former minister by the neck and choking him, but Pan accused KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih’s (林益世) wife Peng Ai-chia (彭愛佳), a TV reporter, of trying to mislead the public into thinking that DPP legislators had resorted to violence.
Yeh was later admitted to National Taiwan University Hospital with high blood pressure.
The judge wrote in his ruling that after examining the evidence, he found Pan not guilty because he did not purposely cause harm to Yeh, and that the pushing and shoving was caused by the massive crowd that was gathered around Yeh.
The judge also criticized prosecutors for using double standards in evaluating whether to indict or not indict, because based on the evidence, Chang grabbed Yeh by the neck with his left hand to stop the former department head from leaving. The judge said that Chang’s action could constitute coercion because he was depriving Yeh of the ability to exercise his free will.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office declined to comment on the ruling, saying only that they have yet to decide whether to file an appeal.
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