The High Court yesterday overturned a Taipei District Court decision to release Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and sent the case back to the lower court.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office on Saturday questioned Ko amid a probe into alleged corruption involving the Core Pacific City development project during his time as Taipei mayor.
Core Pacific City, also known as Living Mall (京華城購物中心), was a shopping mall in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山) that has since been demolished.
Photo: Wang Ching-yi, Taipei Times
On Monday, the Taipei District Court granted a second motion by Ko’s attorney to release him without bail, a decision the prosecutors’ office appealed immediately.
A collegiate bench of High Court judges said in a ruling yesterday evening that there is substantial evidence implicating officials of Ko’s administration in alleged bribetaking from Core Pacific Group (威京集團) chairman Sheen Ching-jing (沈慶京).
Ko’s claims of ignorance about the alleged scheme while he approved changes to the project’s scope based on recommendations of experts at the Taipei Urban Planning Commission mean an investigation is warranted, it said.
The judge who granted Ko’s no-bail release failed to appropriately review the evidence presented by the prosecutors in its entirety, it said.
Meanwhile, an appeal by former Taipei deputy mayor Pong Cheng-sheng (彭振聲) was missing a signature and would be processed after the omission is rectified, the High Court said.
The Taipei District Court in the first ruling said that there were reasonable explanations for Ko to have unknowingly approved allegedly illegal amendments to the project’s terms.
The prosecutors did not prove there was sufficient cause to treat Ko as a suspect who wittingly accepted bribes, the lower court said.
Former Ko officials named as suspects in the case include Pong, former Department of Compulsory Military Service commissioner Chu Yea-hu (朱亞虎) and Urban Planning Commission Executive Secretary Shao Hsiu-pei (邵琇珮).
Ko is accused of conspiring with the officials to accept kickbacks from Sheen to change the floor area ratio for the project.
Lin Jou-min (林洲民), former head of the Taipei Urban Planning Commission, confirmed a Mirror Media report that he had expressed concern that the city government could be breaking the law if it agreed to change the FAR.
The objection was submitted in writing and the memorandum’s content agreed with findings in the Control Yuan’s corrective measure against the city in 2016, Lin said.
The Urban Planning Commission deemed the project to be a priority and thoroughly briefed Ko on it, Lin said.
“Whether Ko knew about [the project] is a question that we all can clearly answer in our mind,” he added.
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