Yen Wan-ching (顏萬進), former deputy minister of the interior in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), received a 12-and-a-half-year prison sentence in the final verdict of a corruption case.
The Supreme Court yesterday upheld the verdict from the second trial, in which the Taiwan High Court found Yen guilty of accepting bribes totaling NT$1.2 million (US$40,500) from a developer who wanted a construction license for the proposed Beitou gondola project.
Yen and then-director of Yangmingshan National Park Tsai Bai-lu (蔡佰祿) were detained and charged in July 2006 for taking bribes over the Beitou project, a proposed 4.9km cable car line connecting Xinbeitou MRT Station and Yangmingshan National Park.
Yen was implicated in four cases of fraud. In addition to the Beitou project, he was accused of receiving a kickback of 30 airline tickets from TransAsia Airways, embezzling a political donation of NT$5 million when he served as deputy secretary-general of the DPP.
He was also indicted for handing invoices for personal purposes to then-Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) chairman Wu Nai-jen (吳乃仁) for Wu to claim reimbursement from the TWSE.
The initial trial found Yen guilty on all four charges and sentenced him to a prison term of 15 years.
The term was reduced to 12 years and eight months in the second trial as the Taiwan High Court ruled Yen not guilty of the kickback charge, and ruled that his terms for the embezzlement and invoice charges could be commuted to fines.
Yen appealed the Beitou project conviction to the Supreme Court.
An exhibition demonstrating the rejuvenation of the indigenous Kuskus Village in Pingtung County’s Mudan Township (牡丹) opened at the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency’s conservation station in Taipei on Thursday. Agency Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) said they have been promoting the use and development of forestry resources to local indigenous residents for eight years to drive regional revitalization. While modern conservation approaches mostly stem from western scientific research, eco-friendly knowledge and skills passed down through generations of indigenous people, who have lived in Taiwan for centuries, could be more suitable for the environment, he said. The agency’s Pingtung branch Director-General Yang Jui-fen (楊瑞芬)
Traffic controls are to be in place in Taipei starting tonight, police said, as rallies supporting recall efforts targeting the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers as well as a rally organized by the KMT opposing the recall campaigns are to take place tomorrow. Traffic controls are to be in place on City Hall Road starting from 10pm tonight and on Jinan Road Section 1 starting from 8am tomorrow, police said. Recall campaign groups in Taipei and New Taipei advocating for the recall of KMT legislators, along with the Safeguard Taiwan, Anti-Communist Alliance (反共護台聯盟), have previously announced plans for motorcycle parades and public
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