Lawyers representing former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), currently detained on charges of bribery and corruption involving the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project, yesterday filed an appeal against the detention that was handed down in his previous bail hearing.
The petition was sent to the High Court, which is to convene a three-member bench to review the petition and assess the arguments of each side.
The court is to hand down its decision today on whether to grant or deny a bail hearing, court officials said.
Photo: Taipei Times
Ko is one of four defendants to file an appeal to be released on bail.
Lawyers representing Core Pacific Group (威京集團) founder Sheen Ching-jing (沈慶京), Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Lee Wen-tsung (李文宗), the finance chief of Ko’s presidential campaign last year, also filed applications for bail.
If High Court judges decide to grant the appeal request, then a separate bail hearing would take place at the Taipei District Court next week, court officials said.
Ko’s lawyers in their petition said that there is no longer a need to hold him in detention, as the investigation by Taipei prosecutors had been completed preceding the formal indictment.
They said that Ko’s personal aide, Hsu Chih-yu (許芷瑜), who allegedly served as a financial officer handling political donations from businesspeople and political figures during Ko’s second term as mayor from 2018 to 2022, was not an accomplice, but only a witness in the case.
An international arrest notice had been issued for Hsu, who left Taiwan in late August last year following the launch of the investigation and the search of Ko’s residence and Taiwan People’s Party offices.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS