The Supreme Court yesterday upheld corruption charges against former Yunlin County commissioner Chang Jung-wei (張榮味) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
It sentenced him to eight years in prison and deprived him of civil rights for four years.
Chang, 60, was found guilty of taking NT$30 million (US$983,574) in bribes from a contractor for a government project to build an incinerator while he was Yunlin County commissioner.
Photo: Lin Kuo-hsien, Taipei Times
It was the final ruling, bringing to conclusion a court battle that lasted 14 years.
Chang served two terms as commissioner from 1999 to 2005. He began his political career as Yunlin County council speaker in 1990.
Pundits and social commentators said that Chang’s family had dominated Yunlin politics for the past two decades, and from his base in Yunlin, he controlled many of the transportation, sales and agricultural marketing networks in Taiwan.
His younger sister Chang Li-shan (張麗善) is a KMT legislator representing Yunlin, while his daughter Chang Chia-chun (張嘉郡) served as KMT legislator from 2012 to 2016.
The Chang family is known for its influence in regional farming cooperatives, with Chang Jung-wei’s younger brother Chang Chi-meng (張啟盟) serving as the chairman of the Federation of Taiwan Provincial Agriculture Cooperatives (台灣農業合作社聯合社).
Central Taiwan Farmers Cooperative Association secretary-general Chang Jung-cheng (張永成) is another of Chang’s family members.
The family has in the past controlled the transportation and sales channels of Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Corp.
The case began in 2004, when the county allocated NT$3.3 billion to build a garbage incinerator in Yunlin’s Linnei Township (林內鄉), with potential contractors Onyx Ta-Ho Co (達和公司) and Ding Shu Co (鼎旭公司) resorting to bribing Yunlin County Government officials to become the contractors for the project.
In yesterday’s ruling, former Linnei township chief Chen Ho-shan (陳河山), was also convicted for taking a NT$16 million bribe from contractors. He was handed the same punishment as Chang.
In the first trial at a district court, Chang Jung-wei was found guilty and handed a 14-year sentence. The court reversed the conviction in a second trial and found him not guilty.
Prosecutors appealed the decision, and the case went to trial a third time, with the Tainan Branch of the Taiwan High Court upholding the earlier conviction and handing Chang Jung-wei a nine-year sentence, which was reduced to eight years in the fourth retrial.
When asked to comment on the ruling, Chang Jung-wei said: “I had thought the justice system would find me innocent, but we see politics has interfered with the case... Now the process is completed, I can do nothing, but face the punishment.”
Secretary-general for Central Taiwan Farmers Cooperative Association Chang Jung-cheng said he could not accept the ruling, as the case had no new evidence and was based on questionable testimonies.
It was the ruling government’s way of derailing the KMT’s election campaign in central Taiwan, Chang Jung-cheng said.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS