The Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office yesterday said that the newly-elected Kaohsiung City Council Speaker Chu An-hsiung (朱安雄) has admitted that he bought votes from "some of the council's 44 councilors."
In an even more unexpected development in the case, prosecutors added that KMT Councilor Tsai Ching-yuan (
"He [Chu] named some of the councilors who accepted his bribe money but the total amount he admitted to was less than we suspected. However, his testimony did match that of his wife's, Wu Der-mei's (
Wu was released on NT$300,000 bail on Friday because her lawyer filed the bail request to the court and prosecutors also believe that she has cooperated with them and there was no longer existed any reason to detain her.
The couple were detained on Dec. 28. Chu still remains in custody.
Announcing Tsai's revelation, Chou told reporters, "He said that he was planning to buy votes at the price of NT$5 million for each vote as well, but he did not explain why he suddenly decided to quit his campaign for the speakership and began to support Chu."
Chou sought to clarify certain aspects of the investigation. "A Chinese-language news story reported that Chu has admitted that he bought votes from all the councilors we have summoned. That's not true. He didn't say that," he said.
He also denied a rumor that prosecutors made a deal with Chu to release him on bail if he agrees to step down.
"We never made that offer to him, and we never will" he said.
Chou confirmed the court granted prosecutors' request to detain Tsai, summoned by prosecutors Friday, at midnight yesterday.
Prosecutors believe that the sudden and mysterious withdrawal from the poll by Tsai, a veteran Kaohsiung City councilor about to start his his 6th term on the council, may suggest that he knows more than he has admitted.
Chou said that Tsai had admitted to receiving Chu's bribe money. Moreover, he said that he persuaded another five councilors to support Chu for the speakership and helped Chu distribute the bribe money to the five afterwards.
"Among the five, three of them are KMT and the rest are PFP. However, please forgive me if I cannot identify these councilors at this moment," Chou said.
Chou said that Kaohsiung prosecutors had summoned two more councilors, whom he could not name, yesterday morning, bringing to 29 the number of Kaohsiung City councilors to face questions regarding bribery. Of the 29, 10 have admitted to receiving NT$5 million in payoffs from Chu and have agreed to hand the money to prosecutors. Chou said that one councilor has so far failed to return the full amount, leaving a shortfall of NT$1.5 million.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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