If convicted former legislative speaker Liu Sung-fan (
Hwang Yih-jiau (
Ex-KMT member
Liu, 74, served as speaker of the Legislative Yuan from 1992 to 1999 while the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was in power, but he joined the PFP in January 2000 and became one of its legislators-at-large after he was expelled from the KMT for supporting PFP Chairman James Soong (
Liu was sentenced to four years in jail and given a NT$30 million (US$903,000) fine in September last year by the Taiwan High Court's Taichung Branch for corruption.
The court found that, as chairman of the board at the Taichung Business Bank, Liu received NT$150 million in kickbacks from Tseng Cheng-jen (
Away when sentenced
At the time of the sentence, Liu was attending the Republican Party convention in New York. He has remained in the US ever since.
The warrant issued for his arrest will remain valid for 15 years.
Also commenting on the report about Liu's intention to return, William Lai (
Jail first
He said that Liu should come back to Taiwan to serve his sentence, and that if he is found to have a health problem while he is in jail, the legal system may grant him bail for medical treatment based on humanitarian considerations.
Answering questions in the legislature, Minister of Justice Morley Shih (
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS