Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) might be indicted again because prosecutors are collecting evidence from overseas regarding his alleged money-laundering activities in Singapore while in office, prosecutors said yesterday.
Sources said prosecutors with the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Panel (SIP) are cooperating with Singapore’s judicial authorities in investigating several bank accounts managed by Liu Tai-ying (劉泰英), then Lee’s aide, in a bid to track the money that was allegedly laundered by the former president. Local media have reported that former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), on Sept. 5, 2008, while under investigation for corruption, offered prosecutors evidence purporting to show Lee’s involvment in laundering about US$50 million while serving as president from 1988 to 2000. SIP spokesman Chen Hung-ta (陳宏達) said yesterday Chen’s accusation against Lee was being probed by SIP prosecutors and that five of Lee’s former security agents — Chen Kuo-sheng (陳國勝), Lee Tsung-jen (李宗仁), Cheng Kuang-lin(鄭光麟), Liao Sung-ching(廖松青) and Lee Chih-chung (李志中) — have been prohibited from leaving the country since Oct. 5, 2008, for allegedly opening overseas bank accounts used in the alleged money laundering.
Chen Hung-ta said the SIP recently asked Singapore’s judicial authorities for information on bank accounts allegedly used for money laundering in accordance with a judicial mutual assistance agreement between the two countries.
“Taiwanese prosecutors are still working on the case, which is separate from the recent embezzlement indictment against Lee,” the sources said.
Lee was indicted on Thursday by SIP prosecutors on charges of embezzling US$7.79 million in national security funds to create a private non-profit organization. However, no jail term is being sought for Lee, 88, because of his advanced age.
In a speech at a fund-raising event on Friday evening sponsored by the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), Lee professed innocence and said: “Even if there is no justice in this world, God will let justice take its course.”
“Should I die,” he added, “there will be millions of people like me who will continue striving for Taiwan’s sovereignty and democracy.”
Meanwhile, the SIP deneid that Chen Shui-bian, who succeeded Lee in 2000, blew the whistle on Lee’s suspected national security fund embezzlement. Local media reported that Chen brought up Lee’s alleged activities in a court hearing for his own corruption charges in September 2008. Chen Shui-bian’s daughter, Chen Hsing-yu (陳幸妤), after a visit to her father on Friday, also quoted her father as saying Lee’s embezzlement indictment has nothing to do with him.
Chen is now serving a 17-and-a-half year jail term on corruption charges at Taipei Prison.
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
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