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.
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
Two Taiwanese prosecutors were questioned by Chinese security personnel at their hotel during a trip to China’s Henan Province this month, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. The officers had personal information on the prosecutors, including “when they were assigned to their posts, their work locations and job titles,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said. On top of asking about their agencies and positions, the officers also questioned the prosecutors about the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement, a pact that serves as the framework for Taiwan-China cooperation on combating crime and providing judicial assistance, Liang
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS