The Hualien District Court yesterday night approved a request by prosecutors to detain Hualien County Cultural Affairs Bureau Director Wu Jin-yi (吳勁毅) and a section chief for two months over alleged corruption in favoring bidders in public tenders.
Wu and Tseng Chun-hsiang (曾俊翔), chief of the bureau's Administrative and Cultural Facilities Division, were suspected of seeking to gain illegal benefits by misusing public power, the court said, citing evidence collected by the prosecutors.
The court said the alleged offenses carry a minimum sentence of more than five years and it is believed there would be a risk that the two suspects could collude with others to tamper with evidence.
Photo: Taipei Times file photo
The court ruled that the two are to be detained and held incommunicado.
The Hualien County Cultural Affairs Bureau allowed operators to run Jiang Jun Fu 1936, a tourist attraction in Hualien, despite some of the facilities not complying with regulations, prosecutors said.
Wu made duplicate claims for small purchases that involved a religious ceremony performed to “drive out” ghosts, making illegal gains of more than NT$5 million (US$170,000), prosecutors said.
Wu was also found to have more than NT$10 million in his account that he failed to provide a reasonable excuse for having, they said.
This is to be investigated in accordance with the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例), prosecutors said.
He also used an official vehicle for personal purposes, they said.
Yesterday, searches were also carried out at 16 locations, including county government offices, Wu's residence and government dormitories, while a total of 10 people, including Wu and related witnesses, were notified and summoned to give statements.
Five people were released on bail ranging from NT$30,000 to NT$50,000, while three people were released without bail, prosecutors said.
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
RSS