Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was found not guilty by the Taiwan High Court yesterday of directing his aides to give false testimony to prosecutors who were probing his alleged misuse of a special state affairs fund.
The High Court ruling overturned one handed down by the Taipei District Court in July last year, in which Chen was sentenced to two months in jail on charges of urging Ma Yung-cheng (馬永成) and Lin Teh-hsun (林德訓) — who headed Chen’s office at different times during his two terms as president from 2000 to 2008 — to make untrue statements.
The district court ruled that Chen had asked the pair to tell prosecutors that the state affairs fund was used for secret diplomatic operations rather than being pocketed by the first family.
Also, Chen had wanted them to say that his wife, Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍), had never used invoices provided by other people to pocket cash from the fund, according to the district court ruling.
Lin was handed a two-month sentence by the Supreme Court in November last year for perjury — Ma was not indicted in the case.
However, the High Court found that before Lin gave his testimony on Aug. 8, 2006, the prosecutors had not informed him that he had the right to refuse to testify.
Under these circumstances, Lin’s actions did not constitute perjury, even if he had lied to prosecutors that day, the High Court said.
Moreover, there was no evidence proving that Chen had instructed Lin and Ma to give false testimony, the court said.
Chen is currently serving a 17-and-a-half-year sentence for taking bribes in a land development project and for influencing the appointment of a chairwoman at the Taipei 101 tower.
In August last year, the High Court ruled that Chen was not guilty of embezzling state affairs funds, although he was given an extra 10-month prison term for his role in using fraudulent receipts to pocket reimbursements for expenditure from the special fund. The prosecution is currently appealing the verdict.
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
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,