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$34,024) late on Tuesday night, after prosecutors indicted 31 people for allegedly forging recall petition signatures.
Prosecutors on Tuesday 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).
Prosecutors said Chen played a lead role in the alleged fraud.
Although Chen said the KMT’s central headquarters assigned her to oversee the recall effort, she denied any wrongdoing, 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 yesterday 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) — who were held incommunicado.
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 (CEC) and analyzing individual signatures and handwriting, prosecutors found that some signatures were faked.
Separately, the KMT yesterday urged the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office to investigate five groups heading recall campaigns against the party’s legislators, alleging that the groups had forged signatures in recall petitions.
The CEC on Friday last week announced that recall campaigns against 24 KMT legislators were approved and that a vote was scheduled for July 26.
However, KMT Legislator Chen Yu-jen (陳玉珍) yesterday said that thousands of signatures were repeated across phase 1 and phase 2 of the recall process targeting KMT legislators Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯), Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇), Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強), Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) and Lee Yan-hsiu (李彥秀) of Taipei.
Chen Yu-chen said that according to the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), signatories in the first phase cannot also be used in the second phase.
The KMT urges prosecutors to investigate the groups, as it had against groups that campaigned for the recall of DPP legislators, she said.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said that they are already investigating a case of alleged signature fraud in petitions against Wang, and the office has summoned persons of interest for questioning.
The office said it has also received a complaint from KMT Legislator You Hao (游顥) about suspected signature fraud, adding that it forwarded the incident to the Nantou County Prosecutors’ Office as it was outside its jurisdiction.
Eight Chinese naval vessels and 24 military aircraft were detected crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait between 6am yesterday and 6am today, the Ministry of National Defense said this morning. The aircraft entered Taiwan’s northern, central, southwestern and eastern air defense identification zones, the ministry said. The armed forces responded with mission aircraft, naval vessels and shore-based missile systems to closely monitor the situation, it added. Eight naval vessels, one official ship and 36 aircraft sorties were spotted in total, the ministry said.
INCREASED CAPACITY: The flights on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays would leave Singapore in the morning and Taipei in the afternoon Singapore Airlines is adding four supplementary flights to Taipei per week until May to meet increased tourist and business travel demand, the carrier said on Friday. The addition would raise the number of weekly flights it operates to Taipei to 18, Singapore Airlines Taiwan general manager Timothy Ouyang (歐陽漢源) said. The airline has recorded a steady rise in tourist and business travel to and from Taipei, and aims to provide more flexible travel arrangements for passengers, said Ouyang, who assumed the post in July last year. From now until Saturday next week, four additional flights would depart from Singapore on Monday, Wednesday, Friday
The Ministry of National Defense yesterday reported the return of large-scale Chinese air force activities after their unexplained absence for more than two weeks, which had prompted speculation regarding Beijing’s motives. China usually sends fighter jets, drones and other military aircraft around the nation on a daily basis. Interruptions to such routine are generally caused by bad weather. The Ministry of National Defense said it had detected 26 Chinese military aircraft in the Taiwan Strait over the previous 24 hours. It last reported that many aircraft on Feb. 25, when it spotted 30 aircraft, saying Beijing was carrying out another “joint combat
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) today said that if South Korea does not reply appropriately to its request to correct Taiwan’s name on its e-Arrival card system before March 31, it would take corresponding measures to alter how South Korea is labeled on the online Taiwan Arrival Card system. South Korea’s e-Arrival card system lists Taiwan as “China (Taiwan)” in the “point of departure” and “next destination” fields. The ministry said that it changed the nationality for South Koreans on Taiwan’s Alien Resident Certificates from “Korea” to “South Korea” on March 1, in a gesture of goodwill and based on the
RSS