With the campaign camps of presidential hopefuls Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) still exchanging fire over the leak to media of a prosecutorial document, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative whip Wang Sing-nan (王幸男) yesterday sought to end the bickering by saying the leak was a conspiracy orchestrated by people within the prosecutorial system.
Wang told reporters yesterday morning that the leak was a scheme cooked up by Kaohsiung Prosecutor Lo Chien-hsun (
Wang said he intended to call Su and Hsieh on the eve of the party's primary in a bid to stop them from continuously wrangling over the leak, but "it was too late."
The DPP party member vote took place yesterday.
Wang was referring to heated exchanges between Su and Hsieh's camps over a story reported by the Chinese-language Next Magazine.
On Wednesday, the magazine published a copy of what it said was an official document signed by Lo, which had been sent from the Kaohsiung bureau of the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors' Office to the Investigation Bureau on April 3.
The magazine said that Lo believed Hsieh should be indicted on corruption charges on suspicion of accepting illegal donations from a Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp (KRTC) board member and others during his term as mayor of Kaohsiung.
Hsieh's campaign initially criticized the Cabinet for the ministry's failure to discover the identity of the source of the leak before the primary.
Su struck back at a separate event on Saturday by saying he had believed in Hsieh's innocence from the very beginning, but Hsieh's camp had still attacked and smeared him by sending text messages to the media accusing the Cabinet of being the mastermind behind the leak.
The two camps took the infighting further by running advertisements on the front pages of major Chinese-language newspapers yesterday, with Su's camp accusing Hsieh of trying to shift the public's focus from the KRTC bidding scandal by linking Su to the leak.
Wang said a source had told him that the source of the document leak was the same group of people who previously disclosed information to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiu Yi (
The caucus whip, however, did not present evidence to prove his allegation but said he would disclose details in a press conference today.
In response, Lo issued a statement yesterday saying the prosecutorial document had been leaked by "Taipei's people on purpose," blasting them for the leak.
"I am a person without any political agenda and I had no motivation to leak the investigation [document] to the media," he said in the statement. "I must rebut Legislator Wang's accusation that I am the mastermind behind this incident and that I conspired with individuals from the Ministry of Justices' Investigation Bureau to do it."
Lo appealed to Next Magazine to reveal its source.
The prosecutor stressed that he was willing to take a lie detector test to prove his innocence.
Additional reporting by Rich Chang
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
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
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
RSS