Lawyers representing Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said that the former Taipei mayor would not appeal the Taipei District Court’s ruling on Thursday last week that resulted in their client being detained and held incommunicado.
The three defense lawyers — Cheng Shen-yuan (鄭深元), Lu Cheng-yi (陸正義) and Hsiao Yi-hung (蕭奕弘) — issued a joint statement declaring that Ko would not file an appeal against the detention ruling.
The statement said that Ko had been “clear” before the detention hearing that he would not want to “cause difficulties for the court” and would not protest the court’s decision if detained.
Photo: CNA
When meeting with his lawyers after being detained, Ko reiterated that he did not want to file an appeal, the statement said, adding that Ko told his lawyers he would “fully cooperate” with the ongoing investigation.
According to the Code of Criminal Procedure, Ko could be detained and held incommunicado for a maximum of four months without being formally charged.
The TPP in a statement yesterday asked the judicial authorities to clarify the truth as soon as possible.
Prosecutors have turned the legal case into a political case, and as they have already formed an “inner conviction,” Ko decided there is no need to appeal, TPP secretary-general Chou Yu-hsiu (周榆修) said yesterday.
Lawyer Huang Di-ying (黃帝穎) said that Ko did not appeal because he knows he has only a slim chance of winning.
Several thousand Ko supporters on Sunday evening gathered outside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei at a rally organized by the TPP titled: “Assemble. Stand up for justice in Taiwan’s judiciary.”
Expressing the belief that Ko is innocent of any wrongdoing and instead has been subject to political persecution by the Democratic Progressive Party government led by President William Lai (賴清德), TPP Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said at the rally: “The Lai government will not let him go.”
Ko, 64, is being held at Taipei Detention Center in New Taipei City and can communicate only with his lawyers while prosecutors continue their investigation into alleged corruption dating back to his second term as Taipei mayor from 2018 to 2022.
Prosecutors allege that Core Pacific Group (威京集團) chairman Sheen Ching-jing (沈慶京) gave Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Ying Hsiao-wei (應曉薇) more than NT$47.4 million (US$1.48 million) as part of an effort by the company to illegally lobby the Taipei City Government to increase the floor area ratio (FAR) of its large commercial property to raise its financial value.
The Taipei District Court on Thursday last week said that Ko “clearly knew” that raising the FAR of the property was illegal, yet he “insisted” it must happen.
Due to the severity of the crime and the scale of the alleged financial gains involved in the case, the court ruled that it was necessary and in the public interest to detain Ko and hold him incommunicado, since the risk of him colluding with others or destroying evidence was judged to be sufficiently strong.
The ruling reversed an earlier decision by the same court on the morning of Monday last week that ordered the release of Ko without bail.
In related news, the Taipei City Police Department yesterday arrested a 48-year-old man surnamed Yang (楊), who allegedly wrote online comments threatening to harm court judges and prosecutors related to Ko’s detention,
Yang would be charged with intimidation and threatening to endanger another’s safety, police said.
Police said that an initial investigation suggested that Yang is not a member of the TPP nor a fanatic Ko supporter, but he was disillusioned with politics and made the comments to blow off steam.
Freedom of speech is a universal value in Taiwan, which people should cherish and defend, but they should also respect others with different political views, police said, urging people not to make threatening remarks online, or they could be investigated and dealt with according to the law.
Additional reporting by Lin Che-yuan and Wang Kuang-ren
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