The Kaohsiung District Court summoned 21 indicted city councilors to appear in court yesterday on charges relating to bribery in the Kaohsiung City Council speakership election last December but only six of them showed up.
On July 29, the court wrapped up part of the case and came up with sentences ranging from four months to 18 months in jail for five defendants, including four city councilors and one lawmaker. A second trial was scheduled to open on Aug. 28.
According to Kaohsiung District Court Presiding Judge Lin Shui-cheng's (林水城) plan, yesterday's hearing was supposed to be the last court hearing before the second trial. It was also the last chance for indicted councilors to defend themselves before judges come up with a verdict.
However, in the wake of the defendants' absence yesterday the final hearing and the trial have been rescheduled.
During yesterday's hearing all but two of the indicted councilors admitted to the crimes they were charged with.
The indicted councilors had a diverse range of excuses ready when asked about their court no-shows.
Chen Nai-ching (陳乃靜) said that he had to be absent from court because, for him, serving the people came first.
"Today's [council] meeting is to review Mayor Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) policies and question him where necessary," Chen said. "As a result, my own personal matters have to wait."
Tong Yen-chen (童燕珍) complained that she had been mistreated by law enforcement officers during the investigation.
"They did not carry out their investigation by the book," she said. "I was mistreated."
She refused, however, to defend herself in court, but failed to explain why.
Ever since the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office indicted 40 people on April 7, including 34 city councilors, over the offering and taking of bribes in the speakership elections the Kaohsiung District Court has scheduled court hearings every Thursday, but judges have never had all the defendants together at one time. Chen Nai-ching, for example, has never attended any of the hearings.
Li said that none of the absent indictees would be arrested because they all had legal excuses to be absent. However, their constant absence would prolong the entire trial.
"Everybody hopes to wrap up this case as soon as possible," Lin said. "However, we really cannot do anything when these indicted councilors always have legal excuses to miss our hearings."
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS