Former independent legislator Su Ying-kuei (蘇盈貴) yesterday accused the National Security Bureau of using a "faked photo" to frame Chen Yi-hsiung (陳義雄) over the attempted assassination of the president and vice president on March 19, 2004. Su however admitted that he had no proof to substantiate his claim.
Making his claims at a press conference held at the legislature yesterday, Su said that bureau officials had lied to the public by saying that a photo that had actually been taken on March 18 had been taken the following day.
Su claimed that the photo in question was taken when bureau officials rehearsed maintaining public order on the eve of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu's (呂秀蓮) campaign tour on March 19, 2004.
PHOTO: WANG CHUN-CHUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
"If it can be confirmed that the motorcycles in the photo belong to the bureau, it means that bureau officials were involved in [the shooting incident]. The shooting was a plot which was planned in advance," Su said.
Diplaying two photos, Su said that one, which was provided by the police, showed a bald man in a yellow jacket standing in the "hot zone" of the crime scene.
The police claim to have got the image from surveillance-camera footage taken from a store near the scene. Investigators subsequently identified the bald man in the yellow jacket as Chen, one of the people who made purchases from an arms maker by the name of Tang Shou-yi (唐守義), and named him as their primary suspect.
The second photo Su exhibited was from the Chinese-language United Daily News.
"The two photos were taken at the same place and just 17 seconds apart. But one shows only a few people, while the other is jam-packed with people," Su said, noting that this was the first piece of evidence that suggested that the photo provided by the police was not taken on March 19.
Later in the day, the Criminal Investigation Bureau held a press conference and rebutted Su's claim by showing footage taken by a bystander on March 19, 2004. The footage appeared similar to that used by the police to produce the picture of the alleged shooter.
At Su's press conference, an American English teacher identified only as "Jason" said that he could prove that the photo provided by the police was not taken from surveillance-camera footage.
"If it was taken from the surveillance footage, it would have been taken from inside the store. But the outside of the store is visible in the photo, meaning that the photo was taken from the outside," the man said.
According to Su, "Jason" has been working on a documentary on the assassination scandal.
The Judicial Reform Foundation yesterday condemned Su for making outrageous claims without substantiating evidence.
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said he would support a new investigation into the incident if new evidence came to light.
The premier made the remarks on the legislative floor in response to questions from KMT Legislator Ko Chun-hsiung (
In response to KMT Legislator Huang Chao-shun (
"I personally do not have any preferences on this matter, but I do support the findings of the law enforcement officers' investigation," he said. "I play the game by the rules, so I will not do anything I am not supposed to do."
Additional reporting by Jimmy Chuang
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