The Tainan District Court today sentenced former Tainan City Council speaker Kuo Hsin-liang (郭信良) to 13 years in prison for receiving bribes to interfere in a zoning project.
The ruling, which also strips Kuo of his civil rights for eight years, can be appealed.
It also sentenced former Tiansi Borough (佃西) warden Kao Chin-chien (高進見) to nine years for corruption with an additional six months for abetting perjury, and deprived him of his civil rights for four years.
Photo: CNA
The Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office said there could be further action in the case, as it has summoned more officials from the Tainan City Government for questioning.
Kuo and Kao were found guilty of extorting and receiving more than NT$13 million (US$407,402) in bribes from an engineering consultancy looking to rezone an agricultural plot to construct a residential building in 2021.
The court said it decided on the relatively steep sentence for Kuo due to his “poor attitude.”
Kuo vowed to appeal the ruling, saying he would “defend his innocence” and accusing the court of only listening to one person’s description of the events.
Kuo was a member of the Democratic Progressive Party when he served as deputy speaker from 2010 to 2018 and acting speaker for two months in 2016, before he left the party in 2018 to make a successful run for the speakership as an independent.
He currently still serves as a city councilor.
Additional reporting by Jason Pan and CNA
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