Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday maintained his innocence during the first of three pre-trial hearings on charges of corruption and money laundering.
“I am totally innocent and there is absolutely no way I would accept such charges and insults,” Chen said.
The three-day pre-trial session at the Taipei District Court set the stage for the trial, which is expected to last for months.
PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES
The district court will summon other defendants, including Chen’s son and daughter-in-law, for pre-trial hearings today and tomorrow.
ADDITIONAL CHARGES
During the hearing, prosecutors charged Chen, who stands accused of four counts of corruption and money laundering, with additional charges of “extorting property and demanding donations using influence” and “profiteering” in a land procurement deal in Lungtan, Taoyuan County, in 2004.
The prosecutors said Chen used his influence as president to push the government to buy the land for a science park after his wife, Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍), accepted bribes from the landowner.
Chen and Wu were indicted last month for accepting an estimated NT$300 million (US$8.9 million) in bribes in connection with the deal.
Chen said yesterday the addition of two charges reflected the fact that he was not guilty.
“Why did they need to add these two charges? It is because they know that the initial charges were too weak to convict me,” Chen said. “For the Lungtan case, I was actually trying to help boost the nation’s economy. How can that be called corruption?”
“No [other defendants] have ever named me as bribe recipient and I don’t know why I was charged with taking bribes,” he told the court.
The session, heard by Presiding Judge Tsai Shou-hsun (蔡守訓) and judges Hsu Chien-hui (徐千惠) and Wu Ding-ya (吳定亞), began at 9:30am.
DEFENSE TEAM
Chen’s defense team — Cheng Wen-lung (鄭文龍), Hung Kuei-san and Shih Yi-ling (石宜琳) — yesterday said they had not been given sufficient time to prepare Chen’s defense.
Tsai later postponed the remaining part of yesterday’s hearing and a hearing scheduled for tomorrow to Feb. 24.
Chen, 58, was president from 2000 until May 2008. He has said he is a victim of political persecution by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Also charged in the same case are three of Chen’s former aides and eight other associates and relatives.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
RSS