Former Legislative Yuan secretary-general Lin Hsi-shan (林錫山) yesterday began a 36-year jail sentence for receiving bribes, holding assets of unknown origin and other offenses.
Lin was indicted in 2016 for irregularities in the procurement of computers for the legislature. He was accused by prosecutors of being involved in a scheme to help a company secure supply contracts.
From 2011 to 2015, Farnet Technologies Co won 33 contacts to supply the legislature with computers and was often the sole bidder, prosecutors said during their investigation in 2016.
In May 2017, Lin was sentenced by a district court to 16 years for accepting kickbacks, among other offenses, and was stripped of his civil rights for six years.
In March last year, the Taiwan High Court reduced that punishment, ruling that the money he received should be considered bribes rather than kickbacks.
Lin had also confessed to his crimes and had already handed over a portion of his illegal gains, the High Court said.
It also ruled that Lin be stripped of his civil rights for five years.
Lin appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court, which remanded the case back to the High Court for review.
The High Court ruled in a retrial on Thursday that Lin had committed 10 offenses, including receiving bribes, money laundering and holding assets of unknown origin, and sentenced him to 36 years.
Lin reported to the enforcement section of the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office to begin his sentence.
Lin was legislative secretary-general from February 1999 to Jan. 31, 2017, the day before the new legislature was seated.
Prior to that, he was a three-term Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, representing Changhua County from 1990 to 1999.
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