Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) New Taipei City Branch Secretary-General Chen Chen-jung (陳貞容) was released on bail of NT$1 million (US$34,002) late last night after prosecutors indicted 31 people for allegedly forging recall petition signatures.
Prosecutors yesterday completed their investigation into recall campaigns targeting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧), Chang Hung-lu (張宏陸) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城), finding 2,566 forged signatures among the petitions.
They indicted Chen and 30 others for contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法).
Photo: Liao Chen-hui, Taipei Times
Prosecutors accused Chen of playing a lead role in the alleged fraud.
Although Chen denied taking part in the fraud, she did say that the KMT's central headquarters assigned her to oversee the recall effort, prosecutors said.
Chen is suspected of paying party personnel to forge signatures in the campaign against Su and playing a role in gathering fraudulent signatures in the campaign against Chang, prosecutors said.
Chen was released with restrictions on her residence, travel and communications.
In related news, Taipei prosecutors are investigating suspected forgeries in the recall campaign targeting DPP New Taipei City Councilor Evalyn Chen (陳乃瑜).
Prosecutors this morning asked the court to detain three people from KMT Legislator Lo Ming-tsai’s (羅明才) Sindian District (新店) office — director Mou Wei-hui (繆維蕙), and aides Lin Tzu-ling (林姿伶) and Liu Shih-chun (劉時郡) — without visitation rights.
Four other people were released on bail and two more were released after questioning.
Prosecutors launched an investigation after Internet personality Liu Yu (劉宇), also known as Si Cha-mao (四叉貓), in March said that the petitions in the campaign targeting Evalyn Chen had an unusually high “mortality rate,” as 2.7 percent of those who had signed them had passed away.
After requesting records from the Central Election Commission and analyzing individual signatures and handwriting, prosecutors found that some signatures were faked.
After obtaining warrants, investigators carried out searches yesterday.
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