The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday said that it has launched an investigation over alleged misuse of an audio recording by Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌).
Huang, who is TPP chairman, on Monday played a recording at a hearing of the Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee at the legislature on Monday as he was questioning Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) about whether it was proper for prosecutors to threaten suspects during questioning.
The recording sounded like a prosecutor interrogating a suspect using a harsh tone.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Cheng accused Huang of playing confidential material in public.
However, Huang said he never said the recording was from an actual interrogation, adding that it was an “illustrative example” of a “threatening tone and insulting language.”
The prosecutors’ office said that it had received complaints from members of the public seeking an investigation over alleged forgery by Huang.
The complaints alleged that he had made a counterfeit recording of prosecutors questioning a suspect amid an ongoing trial, the office said.
Legal experts said that if the tape is genuine, Huang might have contravened the Code of Criminal Procedure (刑事訴訟法) and the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) by revealing identities and details from an ongoing criminal prosecution.
Huang said that he was unafraid of the investigation into his actions.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is abusing the system by directing prosecutors to persecute its political opponents, he said.
Separately yesterday, DPP lawmakers proposed a motion to have the Disciplinary Committee look into the incident.
DPP legislators said that Huang did not reveal the source of the audio and asked whether the material came into his possession legally.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and TPP legislators voted against the motion, with their combined majority defeating it.
Additional reporting by CNA
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