The Taiwan High Court yesterday ordered the Taipei District Court to reconsider its Dec. 18 decision to release former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) pending trial on corruption and money laundering charges. Following the ruling, a hearing will be held this afternoon to decide whether or not Chen will be detained.
The high court made the order at 1:50am yesterday following an appeal filed by the Supreme Prosecutors Office’s Special Investigation Panel (SIP) on Thursday against the Taiwan District Court’s previous decision to release Chen.
High court spokesman Wen Yao-yuan (溫耀源) told reporters that the decision by the lower district court was “a violation of justice. Therefore the high court decided to retract the ruling.”
“The Taipei District Court’s ruling disregarded evidence provided by the prosecutors who warned that the defendant could collude with other suspects and flee the country,” Wen said.
In the appeal presented to the Taiwan High Court, the prosecutors said they would soon begin investigating several other corruption cases allegedly involving Chen and his wife Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍), and that if he were allowed to remain free, some of the witnesses, including three of his former close aides, might withold information.
It was the second time the SIP succeeded in having the Taiwan High Court throw out the Taipei District Court’s decision. The first time was when the SIP filed an appeal with the high court on Dec. 17 in which the latter ordered the district court to reconsider the release. The district court upheld its decision in its second ruling on Dec. 18, which led to the SIP’s second appeal on Thursday.
Chen was detained on Nov. 12 and indicted on Dec. 12 on charges of embezzling government funds, money laundering and forgery related to four cases along with 13 others, including his wife, son and daughter-in-law.
Chen has repeatedly said the charges against him were politically motivated, accusing the China-friendly government of his successor, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), of leading a witchhunt.
SIP spokesman Chen Yun-nan (陳雲南) told reporters yesterday that “the SIP appreciated the high court’s ruling and prosecutors were working hard for tomorrow’s [today] hearing.”
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) yesterday said the fact that the high court overruled the district court’s previous decision to release Chen without bail while asking it to reconsider its decision “is a slap in the face to [Presiding] Judge Chou Chan-chun (周占春) because the high court rebutted every reason why Chou believed the former president should be freed.”
KMT caucus secretary-general Chang Sho-wen (張碩文) urged the district court “to carefully assign” another judge to preside over Chen’s trials so that the public would not question the impartiality of the court.
Tsai Shou-hsun(蔡守訓)was voted to replace Presiding Judge Chou to handle Chen-related cases during a meeting held among the district court’s presiding judges on Thursday night, citing that Tsai had previously handled cases concerning Chen.
As a result, today’s hearing will be presided over by Tsai not Chou.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG AND CNA
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS