Prosecutors on Tuesday evening appealed a court decision to release former Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) on bail, pending his trial on corruption charges.
After a year in incommunicado detention, Ko was released on Monday on bail of NT$70 million (US$2.31 million), but he is required to wear an electronic tracking device and is barred from leaving the country.
Prosecutors said they have appealed Ko’s release, as they have arranged to question several witnesses next month.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
They include Huang Ching-mao (黃景茂), former director of the Taipei Department of Urban Development; TPP Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊); and Wu Shun-min (吳順民), assistant to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), prosecutors said.
A defendant should be detained until witness questioning is complete, prosecutors said.
Ying was released on bail of NT$30 million on Friday last week in the same case, and prosecutors have also filed an appeal against her release.
While Ko was in detention, he instructed others to post social media messages under his name in a bid to collude with witnesses to give false testimony and to influence public opinion, prosecutors said.
Soon after Ko was released on Monday, he violated the bail terms by contacting two witnesses in the corruption case: his aide Chen Chih-han (陳智菡) and TPP Taipei City Councilor Chen You-cheng (陳宥丞), they added.
After his release, Ko also claimed that another suspect in the case was innocent, prosecutors said.
The suspect, Lee Wen-tsung (李文宗), finance chief of Ko’s presidential election campaign last year, is scheduled to be questioned on Tuesday next week, and Ko was trying to collude with him, prosecutors said.
The Taipei District Court granted Ko’s release on Friday last week, stipulating that he must stay at a registered address, wear an electronic monitoring device, remain in the country and refrain from contacting other defendants or witnesses in the case.
After posting bail on Monday afternoon, Ko traveled to Hsinchu to see his mother and returned to Taipei about three hours later.
Ko had been detained incommunicado since Sept. 5 last year, and was indicted in December that year on charges related to allegedly accepting bribes of NT$17.1 million in a property development deal during his tenure as Taipei mayor and embezzling political donations during his presidential campaign.
Prosecutors are seeking a total sentence of 28-and-a-half years for Ko, who has maintained his innocence and argued that the charges are politically motivated.
Ten other suspects have also been indicted, including Ying, Lee, former Taipei deputy mayor Pong Cheng-sheng (彭振聲), and Sheen Ching-jing (沈慶京), founder and chairman of the real-estate conglomerate Core Pacific Group.
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