Former Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團) chairman Wei Ying-chun (魏應充) was yesterday taken to Taipei Prison to resume serving a combined prison term he had been given over a tainted cooking oil scandal that erupted in 2014.
While declining to be interviewed by reporters outside the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office, Wei recited a passage he had written to express his feelings: “Treat others with sincerity; be righteous and moral in your dealings; learn and grow from tribulations; treasure kindness and love and may all in Taiwan prosper.”
Wei was charged by the Changhua District Prosecutors’ Office in October 2014 for breaching the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法) after investigators found the company had imported animal feed-grade material from Vietnamese oil manufacturer Dai Hanh Phuc Co, and described it in its customs declaration as fit for human consumption.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
The Supreme Court upheld a second appellate court ruling on Nov. 6 last year, which ruled that Wei was guilty of breaching the act and other offenses regarding the 2014 case, and sentenced Wei to five years and nine months in prison.
The prison term was reduced as part of it was commuted to a fine.
After the Taiwan High Court’s Taichung branch combined the prison terms from eight separate rulings that could not be commuted to fines, Wei was ordered to serve four years and eight months in prison.
He is looking at two years and nine months behind bars, as he had already been detained for 111 days and served one year and eight months in prison.
Prosecutors’ denied Wei’s appeal to delay serving his sentence due to medical reasons, on the grounds that his condition was not severe and could be treated by prison doctors, said Yu Ming-hsien (余明賢), Wei’s lawyer.
As Wei’s lawyer, it was not his place to criticize the judiciary, but the final ruling shows that there is still a long way to go until the judiciary can fully regain the public’s confidence, Yu said.
Yu said that prosecutors had not conducted a thorough investigation before charging his client and, referring to government agencies complying with investigations, alleged that administrative neutrality had been violated.
Opinions by food industry experts were dismissed by the court, causing bias against his client, Yu said.
Yu accused the court of succumbing to public pressure.
The case’s legal basis — that Dai Hanh Phuc was presumed to not have a foodstuff export license — was lost when Vietnamese media proved that Dai Hanh Phuc did not require such licenses, Yu said.
However, all was not lost and judges still had a chance to remain neutral as there are select parts of the case that have been remanded to lower appellate courts for retrial, Yu said.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai