The Taiwan Keelung District Court yesterday night ordered that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Keelung branch chairman Wu Kuo-sheng (吳國勝) be detained and held incommunicado, while two staffers were released on bail this morning after questioning.
After questioning Wu, the court determined he was strongly suspected of misusing personal data and committing forgery.
The court said Wu posed a risk of collusion and evidence destruction, noting that accomplices identified him as the main offender and he had deliberately used communication apps that made evidence collection difficult. It therefore granted the prosecution's request for detention.
Photo: CNA
During questioning, Wu admitted to taking part in recall efforts against ruling Democratic Progressive Party city councilors Cheng Wen-ting (鄭文婷) and Jiho Tiun (張之豪) of Keelung's Ren'ai and Anle districts.
Although Wu denied the charges brought by prosecutors, his statements were contradictory and failed to reasonably explain the irregularities in the recall petitions, the court said.
Prosecutors yesterday also questioned two KMT staffers, surnamed Cheng (鄭) and Li (李), after requesting permission to detain Wu.
Cheng and Li, suspected of document forgery, were released on NT$50,000 and NT$150,000 bail respectively this morning.
Prosecutors raided the KMT Keelung branch yesterday, taking Wu and the branch's deputy secretary, Han Chi-yuan (韓吉元), in for questioning. Han was later released on NT$100,000 bail.
Prosecutors cross-examined conversations in a WeChat group with the defendants' statements to determine whether Wu was aware of the forgeries.
The group included Wu, Han and Chang Yuan-hsiang (張淵翔), former director of the Keelung City government's Department of Civil Affairs, who was detained Tuesday on the same charges.
Before yesterday’s raid, the KMT branch office was searched on April 28, and Chi Wen-chuan (紀文荃) and Yu Cheng-yi (游正義), the chief petitioners in the recall campaign against Cheng and Tiun, were brought in for investigation.
Cheng was later released on NT$150,000 bail, and Chi was detained and held incommunicado.
Meanwhile, KMT Tainan chapter deputy director Chuang Chan-kuei (莊占魁), who was prosecuted in another recall fraud case, was released on NT$200,000 bail yesterday night after admitting wrongdoing in a trial at the Tainan District Court.
Eleven individuals linked to the KMT, including Chuang, were indicted yesterday for allegedly forging names on recall vote petitions targeting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) and Wang Ting-yu (王定宇).
The suspects were charged with forgery offenses under Articles 210 and 216 of Taiwan's Criminal Code, and for the illegal use of personal information under Article 41 of the Personal Data Protection Act.
Additional reporting by Lin Chia-tung and Fion Khan
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
RSS