The Tainan branch of the High Court today acquitted former Tainan City Council speaker Kuo Hsin-liang (郭信良) of corruption, after the defendant and prosecutors appealed the first ruling of 13 years imprisonment handed down by the Tainan District Court in November last year.
The former independent council member was also stripped of his civil rights for eight years and found guilty of contravening the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例) for receiving more than NT$13 million (US$422,962) through extortion and receiving bribes from an engineering consultancy relating to a land zoning project in Tainan’s Tiansi Borough (佃西) in 2021.
Today’s ruling overturned the conviction and found Kuo not guilty.
Photo: Taipei Times
In the first ruling, alleged coconspirator and former Tiansi Borough warden Kao Chin-chien (高進見) received a nine-year prison sentence and was disenfranchised for four years.
The district court also ruled to confiscate illegal proceeds of NT$6.5 million from Kuo and Kao.
Kao was also found not guilty today on charges under the Anti-Corruption Act, but the High Court did reject his separate appeal against a six-month sentence for committing perjury.
The head of the engineering firm, surnamed Liao (廖), from whom Kuo and Kao allegedly solicited bribes, was also cleared today.
The district court had formerly acquitted Liao of offering a bribe to a public official to perform against their official duties, although the court confiscated his mobile phone.
The Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office launched an investigation into the engineering firm in May 2023, summoning 10 people for questioning and detaining Kuo in July of that year, before he was indicted in September.
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