Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) talked about his possible death in prison and criticized regulations on medical parole in his weekly column published yesterday.
“It would not be a surprise if the headline ‘Chen Shui-bian dies in prison’ appears on every media outlet someday,” Chen, who is serving a 17-and-a-half-year sentence for corruption, wrote in his weekly column, titled “Death of a president,” for the Chinese-language weekly Next Magazine.
Chen said his deteriorating health had been confirmed by several physicians, who had visited him in prison and said Chen’s life “could be in danger anytime.”
While the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has called for Chen’s release for medical treatment, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) did not address the issue until Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) made the same appeal last week.
Ma rejected Hau’s suggestion in an interview with the Central News Agency on Monday, saying that a medical parole would “actually mean [Chen] being released from prison.”
Chen wrote that an executive order from the Ministry of Justice “basically allows a release for medical treatment only for dying inmates, including those who are terminally ill cancer patients.”
“A release under that condition would not be for seeking medical treatment, but for waiting to die,” he wrote.
“[My] dying in prison would be a gift from God and my destiny,” he added.
The DPP has in the past few days accused Ma of “distorting the law.”
“The law clearly stipulates that a prisoner has to return to prison after receiving appropriate medical care and that the time spent out of the prison counts against his prison term,” DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said yesterday in Yilan County’s Jiaosi Township (礁溪).
“It is strange that Ma and I went to the same school, read the same law textbooks and studied under the same professors and yet he comes up with these strange opinions,” said Su, who, like Ma, graduated from National Taiwan University with a law degree.
Also speaking in Yilan, former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said the Ministry of Justice “should act like a professional instead of catering to what the president says and politicizing a legal issue.”
Hsieh said he supported the release of Chen because it would “fit the general atmosphere in society.”
“Any legal expert should know that the interpretation and application of law should meet society’s expectation — and what society expects is that legal practitioners should defend social values and consciousness,” former DPP chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said in a message on her Facebook page yesterday.
“The interpretation and manipulation of law as a tool for personal benefit and political agenda would be a bad example,” she wrote.
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,
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
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Former Taiwan People’s Party chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) may apply to visit home following the death of his father this morning, the Taipei Detention Center said. Ko’s father, Ko Cheng-fa (柯承發), passed away at 8:40am today at the Hsinchu branch of National Taiwan University Hospital. He was 94 years old. The center said Ko Wen-je was welcome to apply, but declined to say whether it had already received an application. The center also provides psychological counseling to people in detention as needed, it added, also declining to comment on Ko Wen-je’s mental state. Ko Wen-je is being held in detention as he awaits trial
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