Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Cheng Cheng-chien (鄭正鈐), who represents Hsinchu City, is the subject of a High Prosecutors’ Office investigation over allegations of leaking government information to Beijing, the office said yesterday.
The office said that it accepted a complaint by Lin Chih-chieh (林志潔), the spokeswoman of a group working to recall Cheng and Hsinchu City Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安), who accused Cheng of accepting Chinese funding for election campaigns and leaking government information.
A former assistant in Cheng’s office alleged that during his time as an elected representative, Cheng accepted funding from the Chinese Communist Party, the criminal complaint filed by Lin said.
Photo: Liu Wan-lin, Taipei Times
Lin also accused the 56-year-old Cheng of instructing the assistant to use his mobile phone to reply to messages from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) and transmit official government documents to it via the social media app WeChat, the complaint said.
The office said that it has accepted Lin’s complaint and its team responsible for “major national security and social order threats” is investigating.
Cheng on Tuesday said in a statement that he has never accepted funding from China in his political career and never handed any confidential materials related to national security to the TAO.
The recall campaign against him “has clearly fallen into disarray and is now resorting to smears and red-baiting,” Cheng said, adding that anyone with real evidence is welcome to file charges.
In light of the “repeated false accusations,” he said he would pursue legal action and not show any leniency.
In addition, Lin, a member of the Democratic Progressive Party and a legal academic, on Wednesday filed a complaint with the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office accusing Cheng of contravening the Political Donations Act (政治獻金法), the National Security Act (國家安全法) and the Anti-Corruption Act (貪汙治罪條例).
The Taipei office has accepted the compliant and listed Cheng as a suspect, tasking its special anti-corruption team to investigate the allegations.
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