A judicial investigation into the tainted cooking oil scandal involving Ting Hsin International Group (頂新國際集團) moved into a new phase when the two judges presiding over the case yesterday inspected the company’s oil processing plant in the south and took samples for testing.
The Changhua District Court judges were accompanied by prosecutors and clerical staff for the inspection at the Ting Hsin Oil and Fat Industrial Co (頂新製油實業) plant in Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔).
Ting Hsin International Group executive Wei Ying-chun (魏應充), along with other senior company officials, has been charged with health safety violations, contravening the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法) and fraud in the tainted oil scandal that rocked the nation last year.
The judges ordered clerical staff and plant workers to take samples from five different intervals in the oil reaction tank, which are to be analyzed to determine the oil’s content, acidity and other key indices, witnesses said.
As the oil at the lower level of the reaction tank has solidified and needs to be heated up for 36 hours to liquefy, a further sampling is to take place tomorrow.
Lawyer Yu Ming-hsien (余明賢), representing Ting Hsin, has maintained that the cooking oil products conform to food safety standards.
The company’s legal team has provided evidence of oil product samples from its main processing plant in Pingtung County, accompanied by videotapes of the facility and the sample-taking process.
However, the judges deemed it necessary to conduct an on-site inspection tour of the plant facilities and take in situ samples for analysis.
During the inspection, Yu said: “We welcomed the inspection, so they can see we have state-of-the-art cooking oil processing equipment from Sweden. It is not some outdated, dirty, rundown system that some people were led to believe we have here.”
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