Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office officials on Wednesday permitted former Taipei Department of Finance commissioner Lee Sush-der (李述德) to return home, but placed him under house arrest and banned him from leaving the country.
They also said they would not rule out summoning former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) for further questioning in connection with the Taipei Dome corruption case.
Prosecutors on Wednesday questioned Ma for more than nine hours, as he had been listed as a defendant along with Lee, Farglory Group (遠雄集團) founder Chao Teng-hsiung (趙藤雄), former Farglory vice president Tsai Chung-i (蔡宗易) and architect Liu Pei-sen (劉培森), the original designer of the project.
Photo: Chien Li-chung, Taipei Times
After 14 hours of questioning, Lee at about 11pm was the last person among the five to leave the prosecutors’ office.
It was reported that prosecutors have gathered evidence indicating that then-Taipei mayor Ma in 2004 might have colluded with Chao to improperly favor Farglory to win the Taipei Dome contract, the terms of which would allow the firm to reap considerable financial benefits.
Prosecutors said that after cross-checking the statements given by Ma and the other four principal figures, Ma is likely to be summoned for further questioning.
During the contract negotiation process for the Taipei Dome build-operate-transfer project in September 2004, there were reportedly several crucial meetings between the Taipei City Government and Farglory executives.
Lee reportedly told prosecutors that Ma met with Chao in September 2004, when Ma allegedly agreed to grant a waiver from paying royalties on the complex.
The investigation is to focus on the details of what transpired in the meetings between them.
Prosecutors said that the royalty waiver would have cost the city about NT$400 million (US$13.2 million) per year for the duration of the 50-year contract for the dome complex, which was to include a baseball stadium, movie theaters, department store, hotel and office buildings.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
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