The Taipei District Court on Tuesday evening ordered that three senior staff from the Taipei branch of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) remain in detention over their alleged involvement in the forgery of thousands of signatures to recall two Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers.
The court cited the risk of evidence tampering and collusion in its decision to keep KMT Taipei chapter director Huang Lu Chin-ru (黃呂錦茹), secretary-general Chu Wen-ching (初文卿) and secretary Yao Fu-wen (姚富文) in custody.
The three directed or participated in the fabrication of 5,211 signatures — 2,537 related to the recall of DPP Legislator Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶) and 2,674 related to the recall of DPP Legislator Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) — with forged signatures accounting for 96 percent and 94 percent of the forms respectively, prosecutors said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office on Monday indicted Huang Lu, Chu and Yao for allegedly contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) and engaging in document forgery.
Forging recall documents undermines not only the legitimacy of the recall process, but also Taiwan’s democratic and electoral systems, the court said.
While Chu and Yao admitted wrongdoing, there were inconsistencies in their statements and signs of coordination among them, the court said.
Huang Lu has denied the charges.
The three, who were already in custody prior to yesterday’s court hearing, were among five people indicted on Monday.
The remaining two — Lai Yi-jen (賴苡任), the organizer of the recall campaign against Rosalia Wu, and Chen Kuei-hsun (陳奎勳), a KMT district office executive — were not detained.
Fifteen other KMT staff and volunteers who cooperated with the investigation were granted deferred prosecution.
The case is part of a broader wave of investigations into alleged forgery in recall drives nationwide.
For a recall initiative to reach the voting stage, campaigners must collect the signatures of at least 1 percent of eligible voters in the first stage and 10 percent of eligible voters in the second stage.
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