Kaohsiung prosecutors stepped up their campaign against vote-buying yesterday, detaining one person and releasing three others on bail for allegedly buying votes for a city councilor candidate.
The Kaohsiung District Court yesterday approved a prosecutors' request to detain a vote captain of Kaohsiung City councilor candidate Su Yu-chu (蘇玉柱), who is running for a seat representing Kaohsiung's fifth constituency, which includes Chienchen and Hsiaokang districts.
The four alleged vote-buyers are all employees of the Kaohsiung City Newspaper Stand Owners' Association, of which Su is the chairman.
Kaohsiung prosecutors claim that the four, Hsu Shu-chu (
Hsu, the most senior of the employees, refused to say whether they were acting under Su's instructions.
Prosecutor Lin Yung-fu (林永富) said that the police raided the association's office on Friday afternoon and discovered NT$600,000 in cash and a list of voters' names, all members of the association.
"Hsu could not clearly explain where this money came from and what it was for. That was why we decided to detain her," Lin said.
Lin summoned the suspects on Saturday afternoon. The court agreed to release Cheng and Wu on NT$50,000 bail and Chen on NT$30,000 bail.
In the past two weeks, two city councilors, a councilor candidate and four vote captains have been investigated for vote-buying ahead of the city councillor elections in Kaohsiung on Dec. 7.
In one case, candidate Hung Hsueh-hai (
Prosecutors have recommended a 18-month sentence for Hung, a 10-month sentence for Hsu and six months for Tsai. Hung and Su are competing in the same constituency.
On Saturday, prosecutors detained KMT City Councilor Chang Ray-te (張瑞德) and his brother Chang Chieh-min (張詰旻) for allegedly buying votes, also by treating voters to a free dinner.
And on Nov. 16, independent City Councilor Huang Fang-jen (黃芳仁) was detained for allegedly buying votes for NT$500 each.
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
RSS