The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office has reopened a probe into allegations of financial fraud stemming from the sale of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) assets in 2005 and yesterday summoned Broadcasting Corp of China (BCC, 中廣) chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) for questioning.
Former KMT administration and management committee director Chang Che-chen (張哲琛) and Wang Hai-ching (汪海清), a former general manager of KMT-controlled Central Investment Co (中央投資公司), were also summoned.
Before entering the prosecutors’ office, Jaw told reporters that he was listed as a witness in the case.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
“The defendant is [former president] Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九),” Jaw said.
Prosecutors have been looking into the sale of three major KMT-owned media companies — BCC, the nation’s largest radio broadcasting network at the time, China Television Co (CTV, 中視) and Central Motion Picture Corp (CMPC, 中影), which came during Ma’s first term as party chairman from 2005 to 2007.
The sales prompted accusations of questionable practices and deceptive reporting on the actual value of the assets.
It was also reported that the KMT had circumvented regulatory oversights to gain financial benefits.
The KMT was accused of transferring party assets to private groups while keeping control of them through key members of the party and their business associates.
The reopening of the case follows last month’s probe into CMPC, which resulted in the detention of former KMT central policy committee director Alex Tsai (蔡正元) on charges of embezzling NT$370 million (US$12.24 million).
The request to reopen the probe into the BCC sale was filed by the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee.
Ma is accused of selling the BCC to Jaw, a close friend, through a complex transaction in a bid to conceal that the KMT retained control of the company and continued to derive financial benefits from its operations.
Investigators found that Jaw bought the BCC from KMT-owned Hua Hsia Investment Holding Co (華夏投資) — paying NT$1 billion for the BCC’s broadcasting facilities, while its real estate, which had a value of NT$4.7 billion, was registered as debt that Jaw owed Hua Hsia.
The BCC was later merged with a conglomerate of media outlets owned by Jaw, investigators said.
Jaw was a member of the KMT’s non-mainstream faction in the early 1990s and had a close relationship with Ma.
He was a KMT lawmaker until 1993, when he split from the party and established the pro-unification New Party.
The prosecutors’ decision to reopen the case was interpreted by legal experts as a rejection of a decision by the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office’s now-defunct Special Investigation Division (SID) to close the case.
The SID, which was abolished on Jan. 1, did not summon Ma for questioning during its probe, even though Ma was the decisionmaker in the sale and as party chairman at the time was therefore responsible for all major party policies.
SID officials in 2014 said the case was closed because their investigation found no evidence of illegal activity.
However, many in the legal field and members of the public criticized it for closing the case, saying the move was due to political pressure and manipulation by Ma and KMT members.
Democratic Progressive Party members and other pan-green camp supporters have claimed that Ma, during his two terms as president, repeatedly interfered with the judicial system and, in a bid to avoid prosecution, stacked the judiciary with officials aligned with himself and the KMT.
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