Changhua District prosecutors said yesterday they suspect that fugitive former Changhua County council speaker Pai Hung-shen (白鴻森), who was put on the nation’s wanted list on Tuesday, was still in Taiwan.
Media outlets have speculated that Pai escaped to Xiamen on Sunday following his disappearance from a hospital. However, Changhua District Prosecutors’ Office spokesman Chen Teh-fang (陳德芳) said their sources indicated that he was still hiding somewhere in Taiwan.
The Changhua County Police Bureau said although cross-strait judicial mutual assistance measures have been invoked to track down Pai, there was no indication that he had entered China.
Prosecutors and investigators are closely monitoring Pai’s family, but he has not tried to contact them since his disappearance.
The former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) council speaker was sentenced in May 2006 to eight years in prison for misappropriating NT$890,000 to treat friends and supporters at hostess bars between 1994 and 2003. He was found guilty of corruption and ordered to return the money to the local government.
Before he was to start his prison term in June, Pai was diagnosed with acute coronary syndrome. He was hospitalized under guard for observation at the Show Chwan Memorial Hospital in Changhua. In August, he was transferred to the Taichung Veterans General Hospital for heart surgery.
Despite being guarded by police officers, Pai managed to leave the hospital on Sunday afternoon.
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