The Keelung District Court yesterday approved a request by prosecutors to detain Chang Yuan-hsiang (張淵翔), a former director of the Keelung Department of Civil Affairs, in connection with an investigation into alleged misuse of personal data in a recall campaign.
The Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office has accused Chang of illegally accessing the household registration system to help revise and verify a list of members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in Keelung.
The data were used to remove the names of deceased party members and update addresses to assist the effort to gather signatures in a bid to recall Democratic Progressive Party city councilors Cheng Wen-ting (鄭文婷) and Jiho Tiun (張之豪), prosecutors said.
Photo: Lin Chia-tung, Taipei Times
Chang had previously been released on NT$400,000 bail late last month, but was summoned for questioning on Monday after prosecutors reviewed new material regarding the case.
He was unable to provide clear explanations regarding the new material, and continued to downplay the nature and structure of the alleged offenses, a source familiar with the matter said.
Prosecutors submitted a detention request to the Keelung District Court at about 3am yesterday, citing a high risk that Chang could collude with others or destroy evidence unless he was held incommunicado.
The court approved the request at about midday, prosecutors said.
The case also involves Hsieh Wei-jen (謝偉仁), an adviser to the Keelung City Government, who was questioned and released on NT$150,000 bail yesterday, prosecutors said.
The investigation in Keelung is one of several across Taiwan, with campaign organizers accused of forging signatures on petitions to trigger public recall votes on both sides of the political aisle.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
RSS