The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office today said it is to appeal the court’s decision to release Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) without bail, while prosecutors questioned another current Taipei City Government official over graft allegations related to a redevelopment project.
The former Taipei mayor was released early yesterday after being interrogated by prosecutors over the weekend.
The project involves building a new office complex named Core Pacific Plaza on the site of the Core Pacific City shopping mall (京華城購物中心) in Taipei's Songshan District (松山).
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
Prosecutors today ordered that Taipei Urban Planning Commission Executive Secretary Shao Hsiu-pei (邵琇珮) cannot leave the country or change her abode after questioning her for seven hours overnight as a corruption suspect.
Her house was searched yesterday, one day after she returned from a two-week trip to Japan.
Prosecutors suspect that Shao illegally helped Core Pacific Group raise the floor area ratio of a redevelopment project in 2020 to financially benefit the company.
She worked as chief engineer at the Taipei Department of Urban Development at the time.
Ko today said that “to be fair,” Shao could not be “the only one” responsible for the case, given that “many people had signed on the document.”
Despite “now knowing” the floor area ratio of Core Pacific City was increased to 840 percent, Ko said he had never participated in any of the meetings of the Urban Planning Commission, and that the prosecutors are “fabricating stories” with information in his computer.
He also said the government is “mobilizing the whole nation” to investigate him, turning the country into a “new party-state.”
Former Taipei deputy mayor Pong Cheng-sheng (彭振聲) and Core Pacific Group chairman Sheen Ching-jing (沈慶京) were also questioned today at the Taipei Detention Center.
Pong, Sheen, Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇) and Ying's assistant Wu Shun-min (吳順民) are currently all being detained and held incommunicado for their alleged involvement in the case.
The court said Pong played a significant role in the case and appeared to have many interests in common with alleged accomplices.
Pong’s lawyer said they would appeal the court’s decision today.
Prosecutors also believe that Ying acted as a go-between between Sheen and high-ranking city officials, including Pong.
Responding to Ying’s being listed as a suspect, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) today said it would mete out a “heavy punishment” if she is found guilty in the first trial.
Additional reporting by Chen Tsai-ling, Lin Wen-hsin and Wen Yu-te
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