Former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) office yesterday threatened to take legal action against political commentator Sisy Chen (陳文茜) if she failed to produce evidence to back her claim that the Special Investigation Panel (SIP) suspected the former president had smuggled US dollars overseas.
The former president’s office issued a statement dismissing the allegation made by Sisy Chen and challenged her to offer a clear account of who at the SIP told her that Chen Shui-bian had secretly shipped US dollars abroad and when the source made this claim.
The statement said all expenses related to the former president’s state visits were arranged by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and there were records of the money, including how and where the money was spent.
“The allegation has no basis in truth and makes no sense at all,” the statement said. “The former president has never taken advantage of his state visits to smuggle private money overseas.”
Sisy Chen wrote in her column in Saturday’s edition of the Chinese-language Apple Daily that the former president insisted on conducting a state visit abroad at the height of a corruption scandal in 2006 and now the SIP suspected that he had smuggled US dollars abroad.
Sisy Chen said in the story, whose headline read “Turn the ugly page,” that the former president benefited financially from the “second financial reform,” in which local banks were encouraged to merge to expand their market shares. She also said he handpicked three younger up-and-coming party members to run for top jobs in Taipei County, Taichung City and Kaohsiung City.
All of them lost because of complications caused by a riot staged by foreign laborers working on the construction of Kaohsiung City’s mass rapid transit system, she said.
The former president’s wife, on the other hand, was hiding a vast amount of money, Sisy Chen said, adding that a caller to a TV program had informed her that the former first lady put the money in Cathay United Bank.
In addition to requesting that Sisy Chen prove her claims, the office asked the SIP to clarify whether it had leaked the information on an ongoing case.
The office did not want to see media outlets break the law or commit human rights violations, the statement said.
Meanwhile, the former president yesterday began to eat solid food.
After agreeing to drink some liquid drawn from boiled rice on last Wednesday, the former president began to eat congee on Friday.
He has been detained without charge since Nov. 12 and had refused to eat since Nov. 13 in protest at what he called “political persecution.”
He is suspected of money laundering, accepting bribes, forgery and embezzling NT$15 million (US$448,000) during his presidency.
The former president has accused the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration of waging a “political vendetta” against him to curry favor with China.
The former president’s lawyer, Cheng Wen-long (鄭文龍), told reporters after visiting his client at the Taipei Detention Center yesterday afternoon that his client has resumed eating and his health has gradually improved.
Cheng said he would request that the detention center provide his client with newspapers, which is a privilege detainees are usually denied.
Cheng said that his client has finished writing a book chronicling his detention so far and is in the process of writing another on Taiwanese independence.
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
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
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
RSS