The Changhua District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday filed an appeal against the release of Wei Ying-chun (魏應充), a former senior executive at Ting Hsin Oil and Fat Industrial Co (頂新製油實業), on bail of NT$100 million (US$3.17 million).
The Changhua District Court on Wednesday approved Wei’s release on the condition that he be restricted to his current place of residence and report to local police daily by noon.
The court said it approved the bail because prosecutors had completed their investigation and Wei’s three-month detention was about to expire.
Photo: Wu Jen-chieh, Taipei Times
The district prosecutors’ office said it filed the appeal with the Taichung branch of the Taiwan High Court because Wei is rich and possesses immense assets overseas and would not be constrained by the bail bond.
Aside from Wei, three other suspects in the Ting Hsin oil scandal have been released on bail. They are the company’s former acting president Chen Mao-chia (陳茂嘉), former general manager Chang Mei-feng (常梅峰) and Yang Chen-yi (楊振益), who owns the Vietnamese trading company Dai Hanh Phuc Co, which is accused of selling animal feed-grade materials to Ting Hsin.
Prosecutors said there is danger of collusion or of the suspects absconding.
They said that Wei should not qualify for bail because he is facing charges that carry a heavy sentence, with prosecutors asking for 30 years in prison; he has a strong incentive to flee; and Ting Hsin had destroyed related evidence during the investigation.
They added that only five of the 10 witnesses summoned have so far been questioned about Chen’s visit to the factory in Vietnam.
Meanwhile, several protesters confronted Wei when he reported to the police station on Xinsheng S Road in Taipei yesterday morning.
Members of the 908 Taiwan Republic Campaign held up placards reading “Chairman Wei please stand up and justify yourself” outside the police station, while asking in a loud voice whether the bail was the outcome of an under-the-table deal.
They also brought bottles of oil labeled “Ting Hsin’s black-hearted oil” to give to Wei.
A young protester surnamed Chung (鍾) said she tried to put one of the bottles in Wei’s pocket, but was blocked by his lawyer.
Campaign convener Peter Wang (王獻極) said that since Wei had said his parents had also consumed Ting Hsin oil, then the company’s oil must also be good for Wei, who has apparently lost weight after his detention.
Wei did not make any comments. Accompanied by his lawyer, he signed in at the station and left in less than three minutes.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS