When the presidential election is over, former president Lee Teng-hui (
"Lee was the president of the country at the time. We need his answers to some of our questions," said Huang Jiunn-ming (黃俊明), the district court spokesman.
Huang said that the case is now being handled by presiding judge Liao Wen-yu (
PHOTO: LUO PEI-TEH, TAIPEI TIMES
When approached by reporters yesterday, Lee said that he would be more than happy to tell the judges everything he knows.
"It is not a bad thing to be summoned. Of course I will go," Lee said.
It will be Lee's second appearance in a court hearing of this nature. On Nov. 12 last year he testified in the hearing about the Zanadau investment scandal.
In addition to Lee, the court is also planning to summon former minister of foreign affairs Jason Hu (
The NSB scandal started with the disappearance in 1994 of US$4.5 million from a secret fund of US$10.58 million to secure diplomatic relations with South Africa. According to prosecutors' investigation, the bureau paid the money to South Africa on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in May 1994.
On April 4, 1999, the ministry returned a total of US$10.7 million, including interest, to the NSB. The buereau's former chief accountant, Hsu Ping-chiang (徐炳強), allegedly asked former chief cashier Liu Kuan-chun (劉冠軍) to deposit US$7.5 million in the Taiwan Research Institute's bank account.
Liu Kuan-chun is suspected of embezzling more than NT$192 million from the total amount. According to the Bureau of Investigation, he left Taiwan on Sept. 3, 2000, and went to Shanghai. He surfaced in Bangkok in January 2002 and then went to North America. Sources say that he is now in Canada.
On Nov. 17 last year, the Taipei Prosecutors' Office charged Hsu and Liu Kuan-chun with corruption and asked the court for a sentence of 15 years for Hsu and 12 years for Liu.
Liu Tai-ying had allegedly wired the money to Yin's bank accounts in the US and Singapore. Yin then allegedly wired the money to one of Ruentex's bank accounts in Taiwan, after which he "donated" US$3 million of it to the Taiwan Research Institute.
According to Hsu's testimony, he had acted on orders from former NSB secretary-general Yin Tsung-wen (殷宗文). The initial order allegedly came from Lee.
Ting took Yin Tsung-wen's position after he retired. However, Yin Tsung-wen died of adenocarcinoma, a kind of lung cancer, on March 28 last year.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Taiwan on Friday said a New Zealand hamburger restaurant has apologized for a racist remark to a Taiwanese customer after reports that it had first apologized to China sparked outrage in Taiwan. An image posted on Threads by a Taiwanese who ate at Fergburger in Queenstown showed that their receipt dated Sunday last week included the words “Ching Chang,” a racial slur. The Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch in a statement on Thursday said it had received and accepted an apology from the restaurant over the incident. The comment triggered an online furor among Taiwanese who saw it as an insult to the