The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday it is considering having Farglory Land Development Co chairman Chao Teng-hsiung (趙藤雄) become a prosecution witness in an investigation into allegations that he allegedly bribed a local government official in connection with a development project in Taoyuan County.
The Chinese-language Next Magazine yesterday reported in its latest edition that the district prosecutors’ office is mulling having Chao turn prosecution witness, adding that prosecutors suspect Chao’s company might have bribed several local government officials in connection with development projects in several cities and counties.
Since the Taipei District Court has confirmed that investigators have intercepted a large number of documents the company allegedly attempted to destroy after they were transferred to a waste paper treatment factory in Taoyuan County, the magazine cited an anonymous official as saying that 69 boxes of documents and accounts have been seized which are likely to contain evidence that Chao’s company bribed local government officials in a number of development projects.
The report said the company has development projects in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan County, Hsinchu City, Miaoli County and Greater Taichung, all local governments run by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) mayors or commissioners.
It added Chao had changed his attitude and confessed to a charge of bribery during a Taipei District Court hearing on Sunday, suggesting that Chao might “fully cooperate” with the district prosecutors’ office.
Responding the report, Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office spokesman Huang Mou-hsin (黃謀信) said “prosecutors would consider Chao’s intentions and whether he is able to reveal solid evidence to prove other criminal actions.”
“Whether Chao is qualified to turn prosecution witness should be decided in accordance with the law,” Huang added.
Meanwhile, Chao, via his attorney Chou Tsan-hsiung (周燦雄), issued a statement on Tuesday saying he had admitted to prosecutors that he was forced to pay the money so as not to “make it difficult for everybody.”
Chou said yesterday that he has quit as Chao’s lawyer because he had been humiliated after media outlets said that his issuing of a statement for Chao was an attempt at “conspiracy.”
Chao and Wei face charges of giving a NT$16 million (US$530,000) bribe to then-Taoyuan County deputy commissioner Yeh Shih-wen (葉世文) via retired professor Tsai Jen-hui (蔡仁惠) before bidding for a public building contract, which Farglory subsequently won in April with a NT$1.3 billion tender.
Tsai and Yeh were taken into custody on Saturday after millions of New Taiwan dollars in cash were found at Yeh’s home and his office.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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