The Taipei District Court yesterday announced its hearing on charges against former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) for embezzling state funds had closed and that it would deliver a ruling on Nov. 15.
Lee, 90, yesterday afternoon attended the hearing’s oral arguments, which were held behind closed doors because the proceedings contained discussions of sensitive national security issues.
The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Division (SID) on June 30, 2011, indicted Lee and his aide, Liu Tai-ying (劉泰英), accusing them of siphoning off US$7.8 million from secret diplomatic funds to establish the Taiwan Research Institute.
Lee issued a statement after the hearing saying he and his attorneys told the court that the investigators indicted him with fabricated evidence and he considered the indictment the most serious humiliation of his life.
Lee said in the statement that in his 12-year term as president, the National Security Council’s and the National Security Bureau’s main roles were to promote Taiwan’s constitutional reform and practical diplomacy, and intelligence and promotion of diplomacy requires some secrecy.
The SID should not question the workings of intelligence and secret diplomacy without any solid evidence, Lee said.
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
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