A Taipei District Court judge who found former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and his wife, Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍), not guilty in a bank merger case was indicted yesterday by Taipei prosecutors on suspicion of negligently leaking the name of a witness to the public.
Judge Chou Chan-chun (周占春) and his secretary, Liu Lee-ying (劉麗英), were charged with malfeasance for being negligent in the disclosure of a witness’ name who was involved in a case involving illegal drug production and transportation heard by Chou, Taipei prosecutors said.
Chou and Liu were found to have failed to seal a classified document which had witness names on it. As a result, after a lawyer for the defendant in the case, surnamed Lu, read the document and told Lu about the matter, the witness was threatened and beaten by Lu, prosecutors said.
Last month, Chou became the target of some pan-blue political commentators when he, citing insufficient evidence, acquitted Chen and Wu of charges that they laundered money and took bribes from bankers in exchange for manipulating bank mergers.
Chou said in the Chen-Wu -ruling that the Anti-Corruption Act (貪汙治罪條例) states that a public official violates the law by taking bribes in exchange for decisions or policies that favor the bribers, but according to the Constitution, the president’s duties do not include overseeing bank mergers, so Chen therefore would have been unable to receive money from banks and reciprocate by helping their merger proposals.
Chou also ordered Chen’s release without bail in December 2008. However, Chen was soon detained again after prosecutors appealed Chou’s ruling and the Taipei District Court overruled Chen’s release.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS