Prosecutors yesterday requested the detention of a Taipei City councilor and a businessman in connection to a corruption case embroiling former Taipei mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).
Prosecutors requested pretrial detention for Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Core Pacific Group (威京集團) chairman Sheen Ching-jing (沈慶京) for their suspected involvement in bribery related to real-estate dealings.
Ying was arrested on Tuesday night at Taichung International Airport as she was about to board a flight to Hong Kong.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Several of their associates were released on bail, while a request to detain Ying’s assistant, Wu Shun-min (吳順民), was approved.
Six suspects have been named in the case, and 12 witnesses had been questioned as of Wednesday evening.
In the ongoing investigation by Taipei prosecutors and the Ministry of Justice’s Agency Against Corruption, evidence reportedly pointed to Sheen making several transfers totaling NT$45 million (US$1.41 million) to Ying, who allegedly conducted five negotiations with the Taipei City Government regarding Sheen’s Living Mall redevelopment project.
The investigation also found Sheen had allegedly set up a special fund of about NT$300 million for “public relations expenses” which the prosecutors suspect served as bribe money for other city councilors and officials.
When questioned on Wednesday, Sheen was quoted as saying that government officials from the administration of former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and Ko had met with him, asking to pay bribes to approve a redevelopment project with increased floor area ratio (FAR), allegedly for Core Pacific Group to add more than NT$40 billion to its financial gains.
Ying allegedly acted as an intermediary between Ko and Sheen, with city government records showing that Ying had arranged for three lunch meetings between the two.
As a city councilor, she also allegedly lobbied for approval of the project and pressured city officials during meetings to grant a higher FAR, raising it to 392 percent and finally to 840 percent, other city councilors said.
KMT Taipei City Councilor Chung Hsiao-ping (鍾小平) said that Ying had had good relations with Sheen for decades, as their families had known each other.
Ying has served four terms as city councilor, with Sheen being the main financial backer for her campaigns, Chung said.
After preliminary investigations in May, Ko was listed as a suspect in the case for possible contravention of the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例).
News reports said that prosecutors would serve summons to Ko for questioning early next week.
Meanwhile, other city councilors from the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party have alleged over the past few days that Ko had made several personal visits to venues owned by Sheen.
Asked about the allegation, Ko said that he went to a private dinner and an event held by Sheen, but only after the presidential election in January, while denying having other meetings with him.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
TAIWAN ISSUE: US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on the first day of meetings that ‘it wouldn’t be a US-China summit without the Taiwan issue coming up’ There were no surprises on the first day of the summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday, as the government reiterated that cross-strait stability is crucial to the Asia-Pacific region, as well as the world. As the two presidents met for a highly anticipated summit yesterday, Chinese state media reported that Xi warned Trump that missteps regarding Taiwan could push their two countries into “conflict.” Trump arrived in China with accolades for his host, calling Xi a “great leader” and “friend,” and extending an invitation to visit the White House
RSS