The Control Yuan yesterday summoned Prosecutor-General Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) for questioning for allegedly leaking details to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of a investigation into a wiretapped conversation, which led to allegations of improper lobbying by Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), adding that it did not rule out calling Ma in for questioning over the nation’s biggest political scandal in years.
Control Yuan members Hung Te-hsuan (洪德旋) and Frank Wu (吳豐山) told a press conference in Taipei yesterday afternoon that they had summoned Huang for an interrogation at 9am and that the three-hour session focused mainly on Huang’s meeting with Ma at the president’s residence on Aug. 31.
“Huang was also questioned over the Special Investigation Division (SID) of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office’s unusual decision to scrap its Sept. 2 plan to question all parties involved in the alleged improper lobbying case,” Hung and Wu said.
Critics have said the closed-door meeting between Ma and Huang “reeked of conspiracy,” as the SID subsequently canceled Wang’s scheduled questioning without good cause and did not conclude its probe into Wang’s alleged improper lobbying until Sept. 5.
Huang also waited until Sept. 6 — the day Wang left for Malaysia to attend his daughter’s wedding — to hold a press conference accusing the legislative speaker of lobbying then-minister of justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫) and Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office Head Prosecutor Chen Shou-huang (陳守煌) on behalf of Democratic Progressive Party caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) in a legal matter.
Hung said Huang did not dodge questions and was cooperative during the questioning, but added that no conclusions had been made as they were still trying to ascertain the truth and had yet to compare and analyze concerned parties’ statements.
Regarding the likelihood of Ma being summoned for questioning, Hung said he did not rule out such a possibility, but it required further discussion to determine whether it was appropriate to term such a session as “questioning” since it was the legislature that had the power to impeach presidents.
Wu said the Control Yuan planned to question Huang again in the near future because it did not have the chance to thoroughly look into all the materials related to the case before yesterday’s questioning, because the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office borrowed a large part of the documentation, which it did not return to the Ministry of Justice until Wednesday.
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