Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators yesterday continued their attacks on former premier Hau Pei-tsun (
On Friday, DPP Legislator Hsu Kuo-yung (
Hsu and Kuan then accused Hau of overturning the nation's decision to purchase 16 warships from South Korea in favor of buying six Lafayette-class frigates from France after a meeting with Jean-Claude Pujol, CEO of the French arms manufacturer Thompson CSF (now called Thales), at Charles de Gaulle airport on May 5, 1989, one day after the purchase of the Korean frigates had almost been finalized.
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
Hsu and Kuan on Friday drew on the Control Yuan's report, in which it was mentioned that a cable filed by Hau on May 8, 1989, during his visit to France, had caused the change of purchase plan.
Rebutting the legislators' claims, Hau on Friday night issued a statement defending himself against the accusations and said that he only met with the former French minister of defense during his trip to France. Hau also denied that he had listened to the manufacturer's briefings in the airport's VIP room.
At yesterday's press conference, however, Hsu said the prosecutors' indictments mentioned that Jean-Claude Pujol gave a briefing to Hau in France.
Jean-Claude Pujol, indicted arms broker Andrew Wang (汪傳浦) and former naval captain Kuo Li-heng (
Hsu and Kuan yesterday also showed the press a copy of Hau's household registration record for a house located on Dunhua S Rd, saying that Hau did not move out of the house until June 7 this year.
On Friday, Hsu and Kuan charged that Hau occupied a "secret residence" provided by the Ministry of National Defense which Hau also dismissed in his statement issued on Friday night, saying that he and his family had never lived in the residence and that he had returned the house to the military.
Nevertheless, Kuan claimed yesterday that Hao is still using the house.
"We can prove that Hau did live there with his family as a family of eight -- a son, a daughter-in-law, three grandsons, and two granddaughters," Kuan said, demanding that Minister of National Defense Lee Jye (
In response, ministry spokesman Wu Chi-fang (
Meanwhile, Hau's son and Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday dismissed the accusations against his father and reiterated his condemnation of the smear campaign launched by the DPP.
Hau Lung-bin denied his father had had a "secret base" and argued that the residence on Dunhua S. Rd was provided by the Ministry of National Defense when his father served as the chief of the general staff according to the regulations.
Although his father had the right to stay in the residence for life, he had never lived in the dormitory, and had returned it to the ministry in June, Hau Lung-bin said.
"Politics should not be without humanity. It's even worse to exercise a smear campaign during elections. Voters should denounce this `green terror,'" he said yesterday.
Additional reporting by Mo Yan-chih
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