A former judge and New Party legislator returned to Taiwan yesterday to face a three-month jail term stemming from defamation charges, having decided against paying an NT$81,000 fine that would have allowed her to avoid imprisonment.
Hsieh Chi-ta (
Hsieh, Feng and Tai had claimed that Tseng attempted to flee to New York after the 2000 presidential election with US$85 million in cash, but was turned back by customs officials.
PHOTO: TONY YAO, TAIPEI TIMES
Hsieh arrived at CKS International Airport on a flight from Beijing at 2:40pm yesterday and was immediately arrested as a wanted convict. The former New Party legislator had for 11 years been a judge at the Ilan District Court, Hsinchu District Court and the Taiwan High Court Hualien Branch.
After identification and a short interrogation at the airport, Hsieh was escorted to the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office to begin her jail term. Because she arrived on a weekend, Hsieh was to be temporarily housed at the Taipei Detention House in Panchiao and transferred to the women's prison in Taoyuan today.
Hundreds of New Party members gathered at the airport around noon yesterday to show their support for Hsieh, despite her fugitive status. Hundreds of police officers were on hand to keep order, but no incidents were reported.
As Hsieh walked off the plane, two policewomen arrested her. Before they escorted her to the interrogation room she was allowed to read an announcement to the press.
Hsieh, accompanied by New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (
"What she did was a bad example to the public," said Cheng Chen-lung (
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck off Tainan at 11:47am today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 32.3km northeast of Tainan City Hall at a depth of 7.3km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Tainan and Chiayi County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Chiayi City and County, and Yunlin County, while it was measured as 2 in Kaohsiung, Nantou County, Changhua County, Taitung County and offshore Penghu County, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of
Weather conditions across Taiwan are expected to remain stable today, but cloudy to rainy skies are expected from tomorrow onward due to increasing moisture in the atmosphere, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). Daytime highs today are expected to hit 25-27°C in western Taiwan and 22-24°C in the eastern counties of Yilan, Hualien, and Taitung, data on the CWA website indicated. After sunset, temperatures could drop to 16-17°C in most parts of Taiwan. For tomorrow, precipitation is likely in northern Taiwan as a cloud system moves in from China. Daytime temperatures are expected to hover around 25°C, the CWA said. Starting Monday, areas
Taiwan has recorded its first fatal case of Coxsackie B5 enterovirus in 10 years after a one-year-old boy from southern Taiwan died from complications early last month, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. CDC spokesman Lo Yi-chun (羅一鈞) told a news conference that the child initially developed a fever and respiratory symptoms before experiencing seizures and loss of consciousness. The boy was diagnosed with acute encephalitis and admitted to intensive care, but his condition deteriorated rapidly, and he passed away on the sixth day of illness, Lo said. This also marks Taiwan’s third enterovirus-related death this year and the first severe
A Taiwanese software developer has created a generative artificial intelligence (AI) model to help people use AI without exposing sensitive data, project head Huang Chung-hsiao (黃崇校) said yesterday. Huang, a 55-year-old coder leading a US-based team, said that concerns over data privacy and security in popular generative AIs such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek motivated him to develop a personal AI assistant named “Mei.” One of the biggest security flaws with cloud-based algorithms is that users are required to hand over personal information to access the service, giving developers the opportunity to mine user data, he said. For this reason, many government agencies and
RSS