Keelung Mayor Chang Tong-rong (張通榮) was sentenced to one year and eight months in prison by the Taiwan High Court yesterday on charges of influence peddling.
Chang, a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) member, had received the same sentence from the Keelung District Court, although the sentence was suspended for five years.
The High Court’s ruling withdrew Chang’s probation.
Photo: Lu Hsien-hsiu, Taipei Times
The ruling said Chang is able to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
The Ministry of the Interior said that according to the law, if Chang is convicted by the Supreme Court and has to serve a jail term, he would be removed as mayor.
Chang was found guilty of using his position to persuade city police officers to ignore an alleged drunk-driving case, dating back to September 2012.
On the pretext of serving his constituents, Chang pressured officers at the Anle Precinct into releasing a woman surnamed Liao (廖), who had allegedly assaulted and injured a policewoman.
The ruling said Chang appeared at the police station and demanded that the woman be released, pounding a table and threatening to transfer those who dared disobey him.
He was recorded as shouting at police officers: “You are great. You are so great. I will have [National Police Agency] Director-General Wang [Cho-chiun (王卓鈞)] come here to give you rewards, and then ask Director-General Wang to transfer you outside Keelung,” the ruling said.
Liao was released.
The ruling said Chang did not show any remorse in the case, although his case had made headlines in the media and Chang has received much criticism.
When the court asked Chang whether he confessed to the charges against him, Chang replied: “I do not,” the ruling said.
It added that Chang insisted his action was to prevent a confrontation between a constituent and police officers, and he “never forced them to free the woman.”
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
RSS