The Changhua District Prosecutors’ Office has decided not to prosecute a criminal case filed against Chang Chi Foodstuff Factory Co chairman Kao Cheng-li (高振利) and two employees by a man who attributed his father’s death to long-term consumption of the company’s oil products.
According to the office’s disposition of non-prosecution, the parents of the plaintiff, surnamed Hsu (許), had used Chang Chi’s oil products since 1996.
Hsu believed the oil was the primary cause of his mother being diagnosed with kidney disease and his father’s death from septicemia in 2008.
Hsu took Kao as well as two senior staff members, Wen Jui-pin (溫瑞彬) and Chou Kun-ming (周昆明), to court on charges of fraud and causing bodily harm after a revelation in October last year that the company had for the previous seven years been blending edible oil products with copper chlorophyllin and cottonseed oil, which are cheaper than other edible oils and toxic if they are left unrefined.
“However, as the company’s oil products were found not to contain the toxin gossypol and there is no scientific evidence indicating that copper chlorophyllin-laced edible oil could cause detrimental health effects, the plaintiff’s word alone is not sufficient to prove the link between his family’s health mishaps and Chang Chi’s edible oils,” the disposition said.
The disposition added that since Hsu was also unable to submit any evidence backing his accusations or provide a list detailing when and how many edible oil products his family had purchased from Chang Chi, the office has determined not to prosecute the case.
On Oct. 25 last year, the office indicted the trio on charges of fraud and violations of the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法).
Two months later, the Changhua District Court sentenced Kao to 16 years in prison and fined him NT$50 million (US$1.66 million), while Wen and Chou were given prison terms of two years and 10 months respectively.
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