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.
921 EARTHQUAKE: The magnitude 7.3 quake left 2,456 people dead and 10,718 injured, while 53,661 houses were fully destroyed and 53,024 houses damaged The Central Weather Bureau yesterday received about 50,000 views on Facebook after it posted the data that it collected on Sept. 21, 1999, when the nation was devastated by a magnitude 7.3 earthquake. The data showed that the 921 Earthquake hit the nation at 1:47am, with the epicenter being 7km southwest of the bureau’s quake detection center in Nantou County’s Yuchi Township (魚池) at a depth of 8km. The quake left 2,456 people dead and 10,718 injured, while 53,661 houses were fully destroyed and 53,024 houses damaged, with the cost of the damage estimated at NT$300 billion (US$10.8 billion at the current
British newspaper The Mail on Sunday reported that Prince Charles met with Bruno Wang (汪家興), a Taiwanese fugitive who describes himself as a Chinese philanthropist and donated ￡500,000 (US$683,522) to the prince’s charity, the Prince’s Foundation. The newspaper reported that Wang is wanted in Taiwan on charges related to money laundering and being a fugitive from justice, allegations he denies, and drew comparisons between Wang and the Russian banker Dmitry Leus. Investigation and cooperation with foreign authorities have found that Bruno Wang’s father, Andrew Wang (汪傳浦), had stashed proceeds from a scandal involving the procurement of Lafayette frigates in 61 bank accounts,
AT ODDS: The KMT called on the government to seek bilateral dialogue with Beijing to resolve the issue that led to the ban on custard apple and wax apple imports Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials and lawmakers yesterday condemned China’s sudden ban on imports of custard apples and wax apples from Taiwan as “obvious political retaliation,” while the opposition called for a scientific investigation into Beijing’s claim to have found pests in imports of the fruits. China earlier yesterday announced a ban on the importation of the two fruits from today, citing repeated discoveries of Planococcus minor, a type of mealybug. The announcement follows a similar ban on Taiwanese pineapples imposed in February. At least Beijing gave a few days’ notice when it banned pineapple imports, an unnamed government official said yesterday. This time
BY OTHER MEANS: China could see CPTPP membership as a means of circumventing trade restrictions imposed by the US, amid an ongoing trade dispute between them The US could invoke a clause in its trade agreement with Canada and Mexico to block China’s application to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a government official said yesterday. Under Article 32.10 of the Exceptions and General Provisions of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), if either Canada or Mexico enter a free-trade agreement with a nonmarket economy — such as China — the US could withdraw from the agreement. “If that clause applies to multilateral free-trade agreements such as the CPTPP — which Mexico and Canada are members of — that might be cause for the two
RSS