Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday asked Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) to apologize for the abuse of power by prosecutors following the recent detentions of several Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) figures without charges.
Lu said prosecutors should begin questioning a suspect as soon as he or she was detained, which had not been done in some of the recent detentions, most notably in the case of Chiayi County Commissioner Chen Ming-wen’s (陳明文) detention.
“The DPP has done a survey and has found that many Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] politicians embroiled in legal cases received treatment very different to that [experienced by] their DPP counterparts,” Lu said. “President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has proudly said he has never interfered in the judiciary, but who will believe what he says after what has happened.”
If Ma could apologize to the public for the state of the economy, it only made sense for Wang to apologize for what has happened over the past few weeks, Lu said.
Lu made the remarks after visiting Chen Ming-wen at a hospital yesterday morning. Chen was hospitalized on Nov. 17 after beginning a hunger strike on Nov. 11.
Chen Ming-wen, who allegedly divulged the reserve price of a tender for a sewage processing plant, was detained on Oct. 28 and held incommunicado until last week.
He resumed eating on Wednesday after his wife persuaded him to give up his hunger strike. Prosecutors then questioned him for the first time since his detention. He was released on Friday night on NT$3 million (US$90,000) bail.
In addition to Chen Ming-wen, Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬) was detained for nine days before being summoned to talk to prosecutors on Nov. 14, at which point she was charged. She was taken to a hospital on Nov. 12 after starting a hunger strike shortly after her detention.
Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has also been detained without charges since Nov. 12 and has refused to eat since Nov. 13 to protest what he called “political persecution.”
Chen Shui-bian is suspected of money laundering, accepting bribes, forgery and embezzling NT$15 million during his presidency.
Chen Shui-bian refused food again yesterday, leading medics to give him intravenous nutrition. He reportedly agreed to drink a sports beverage as well.
Nearly 100 supporters led by DPP Kaohsiung City Councilor Cheng Hsin-chu (鄭新助) and the DPP’s Taipei charter director Huang Chin-lin (黃慶林) gathered outside the Taipei Detention Center yesterday morning.
In an appeal to the former president, Huang got down on his knees and pleaded for him to end his hunger strike.
Chen Shui-bian’s former law school teacher, Lee Hung-hsi (李鴻禧), yesterday condemned prosecutors and judges, denouncing them and wishing their children and grandchildren a bad death.
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