The Taiwan High Court yesterday found Pingtung County Councilor and former independent legislator Tsai Hau (蔡豪) and businessman Liang Po-hsun (梁柏薰) guilty of helping a convicted banker flee to China, the final ruling in their case.
The High Court sentenced Tsai to six months in prison, although the sentence could be commuted to a fine of NT$180,000.
Liang, the former president of the Bank of Overseas Chinese, was sentenced to 10 months in prison, which he must serve.
The ruling said the pair helped Wang Hsuan-jen (王宣仁), former general manager of the bankrupt Chung Shing Bank, flee the country.
Wang was sentenced in 2007 to six years and eight months in prison for breach of trust in connection with of a multibillion-dollar loan scandal.
He and two other top officials at the bank were found guilty of approving illegal loans to six syndicates, including Taiwan Pineapple Corp, which cost the bank billions in bad loans.
Yesterday’s ruling said before Wang received the official notice to start his prison term, Liang urged him to flee to Shanghai, saying he would arrange for Wang to serve as general manager of a steel company that he ran there.
Wang and Liang then visited Tsai in Pingtung, and Tsai later arranged the escape, the court ruling said.
The High Court said Wang flew from Taipei to Penghu in May 2007 before sailing on a fishing boat to Xiamen, China. The voyage took half a day and the next day Wang took a train to Shanghai, where he stayed at Liang’s company until he was arrested.
Wang was repatriated from China in February 2008, the first major economic fugitive to be repatriated since the Kinmen Agreement was signed on Sept. 12, 1990.
Yesterday’s ruling said the pair were convicted of violating the National Security Act (國家安全法), the Immigration Act (入出國及移民法) and Offenses of Concealment of Offenders and Destruction of Evidence (藏匿人犯及湮滅證據罪).
Liang, the former chairman of Hsinchiehchung Construction Co, had himself fled to China in 2004 after being found guilty of embezzling funds from his bank and forging contracts for the construction firm. He was sentenced to 26 months in prison, which he served.
He returned in April 2006, vowing to provide testimony against then Presidential Office deputy secretary-general Chen Che-nan (陳哲男), who was caught up in a corruption scandal.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
COMMITMENTS: The company had a relatively low renewable ratio at 56 percent and did not have any goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy, the report said Pegatron Corp ranked the lowest among five major final assembly suppliers in progressing toward Apple Inc’s commitment to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030, a Greenpeace East Asia report said yesterday. While Apple has set the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy across its entire business, supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, carbon emissions from electronics manufacturing are rising globally due to increased energy consumption, it said. Given that carbon emissions from its supply chain accounted for more than half of its total emissions last year, Greenpeace East Asia evaluated the green transition performance of Apple’s five largest final
The first tropical storm of the year in the western North Pacific, Wutip (蝴蝶), has formed over the South China Sea and is expected to move toward Hainan Island off southern China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. The agency said a tropical depression over waters near the Paracel and Zhongsha islands strengthened into a tropical storm this morning. The storm had maximum sustained winds near its center of 64.8kph, with peak gusts reaching 90kph, it said. Winds at Beaufort scale level 7 — ranging from 50kph to 61.5kph — extended up to 80km from the center, it added. Forecaster Kuan Hsin-ping
RSS