The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office on Thursday summoned Taitung-based wood dealer Su Chung-shan (蘇中山), his younger brother Su Chung-fu (蘇中福) and Xingshan Temple (興善宮) chairman Wang Chao-chin (王朝卿) amid controversies over the legitimacy of the trio’s acquisition and possession of a consignment of valuable lumber.
Prosecutors said the trio were summoned to clarify when the wood was sourced and donated, and whether the Su siblings have any personal relationship with Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) office head Lin Shih-chung (林世崇), who has been detained for allegedly taking a bribe to build a farm road reportedly used to transport the lumber.
While Su Chung-fu did not show up in court, Su Chung-shan denied allegations that he conducted illegal logging, insisting that the logs were driftwood collected in compliance with the Forestry Act (森林法).
The consignment, reportedly donated by the brothers to the temple in New Taipei City’s Sijhih District (汐止) in 2012, consists of 20 logs weighing more than 10 tonnes, including two Taiwan yellow cedar and nine red cypress logs, each measuring up to 60cm in diameter.
The lumber was discovered in a protected zone in Neihu earlier this month, and was later moved to a factory in Miaoli’s Sanyi Township (三義) where it was seized by the police.
According to data published by the Forestry Bureau, top quality Taiwan yellow cedar and red cypress logs sell for NT$133,420 and NT$100,825 respectively.
Su Chung-fu initially told media outlets that he obtained the wood — which he said washed ashore after Typhoon Morakot — in 2009, but later said the wood was harvested between 2012 and 2013.
Responding to criticism over the inconsistencies in his accounts, Su Chung-fu said on a talk show on Thursday that his establishment has been continuously harvesting wood since Typhoon Morakot hit Taiwan in 2009, operating on permits issued by the Taitung Forest District Office.
He also blamed the Taitung office for failing to label the driftwood according to its financial value, which he said has given rise to the controversy.
The act stipulates that local governments should clear away all wood washed ashore after a natural disaster within one month after authorities cancel a disaster warning, and that members of the public can collect wood that does not have economic value after this period by obtaining permits from local river and forest management agencies.
Yang Hung-chih (楊宏志), deputy director-general of the Forestry Bureau, yesterday said that, although the red cypress and Taiwan yellow cedar logs in dispute are valuable, whether the Su brothers have broken the law would depend on the results of an investigation regarding when they harvested the wood.
Regarding Su Chung-fu’s allegation of negligence by the Taitung office in labeling the wood, Yang said that it is yet unclear whether the trio actually sourced the wood from Taitung and when it was sourced, saying that it is still premature to be laying blame.
He also denied Kao’s allegation that the wood had been replaced with cheap lumber before arriving in Sanyi, saying that documentation by bureau staffers proved that it was the same batch found in Neihu.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods