The High Court on Thursday upheld a guilty verdict against former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Miaoli County commissioner and legislator Ho Chi-hui (何智輝) on corruption charges and handed Ho a 13-year prison term, while ordering him to pay back NT$52 million (US$1.57 million) in illegally gained profits.
Legal experts and critics said the litigation had dragged on for too long, and that the decision came too late, because Ho and his wife, Wang Su-yun (王素筠), who is also a former KMT legislator facing corruption charges, had already fled to China in 2010.
Ho was found guilty of receiving kickbacks on an industrial park development project in Tongluo Township (銅鑼) of Miaoli County, during his tenure as the county commissioner from 1993 to 1997.
Thursday’s decision came at the end of a third retrial at the High Court and the ruling can be appealed.
In the first ruling in 2006, Ho was sentenced to a 19-year prison term, which was reduced to a 14-year term in the 2011 retrial, where he was ordered to return NT$223.5 million in illegal gains.
Ho was first elected to a legislative seat in Miaoli County in 1990, which position he served until 1993. He was elected county commissioner and was in office from 1993 to 1997. Afterwards, Ho was elected as a KMT legislator for three terms, from 1999 to 2008.
Investigation revealed that Ho abused his authority as county commissioner and used his political influence as a KMT legislator in the 1990s to receive bribes and kickbacks in expropriating land plots for the Tongluo Township expansion case.
It was found out that Ho had pressured management officials at the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park (新竹科學園區) to transfer kickbacks of NT$220 million to a company controlled by Ho’s wife, while he and Hsiung Ming-wu (熊名武), a co-defendant in the case, split their share on another illegal kickback of NT$130 million.
Ho’s case led to a scandal in the justice system, when it was found out that he had paid more than NT$10 million in bribes to four judges and a prosecutor, to ensure a “not guilty” verdict in the High Court retrial in May 2010.
After coming under investigation, the four High Court judges — Chen Jung-ho (陳榮和), Lee Chun-ti (李春地), Tsai Kuang-chih (蔡光治) and Lin Ming-chun (林明俊) — along with prosecutor Chiu Mao-jung (邱茂榮) were arrested and detained for questioning in July 2010.
They were charged under the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例), in a probe at the time said to be the largest investigation into judicial corruption ever conducted by the Special Investigation Panel of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office.
Afterwards, Ho and his wife evaded monitoring by judicial agents and fled to China in July 2010 to avoid conviction and they remain fugitives to this day.
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