The High Court yesterday overturned a Taipei District Court decision to release Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and sent the case back to the lower court.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office on Saturday questioned Ko amid a probe into alleged corruption involving the Core Pacific City development project during his time as Taipei mayor.
Core Pacific City, also known as Living Mall (京華城購物中心), was a shopping mall in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山) that has since been demolished.
Photo: Wang Ching-yi, Taipei Times
On Monday, the Taipei District Court granted a second motion by Ko’s attorney to release him without bail, a decision the prosecutors’ office appealed immediately.
A collegiate bench of High Court judges said in a ruling yesterday evening that there is substantial evidence implicating officials of Ko’s administration in alleged bribetaking from Core Pacific Group (威京集團) chairman Sheen Ching-jing (沈慶京).
Ko’s claims of ignorance about the alleged scheme while he approved changes to the project’s scope based on recommendations of experts at the Taipei Urban Planning Commission mean an investigation is warranted, it said.
The judge who granted Ko’s no-bail release failed to appropriately review the evidence presented by the prosecutors in its entirety, it said.
Meanwhile, an appeal by former Taipei deputy mayor Pong Cheng-sheng (彭振聲) was missing a signature and would be processed after the omission is rectified, the High Court said.
The Taipei District Court in the first ruling said that there were reasonable explanations for Ko to have unknowingly approved allegedly illegal amendments to the project’s terms.
The prosecutors did not prove there was sufficient cause to treat Ko as a suspect who wittingly accepted bribes, the lower court said.
Former Ko officials named as suspects in the case include Pong, former Department of Compulsory Military Service commissioner Chu Yea-hu (朱亞虎) and Urban Planning Commission Executive Secretary Shao Hsiu-pei (邵琇珮).
Ko is accused of conspiring with the officials to accept kickbacks from Sheen to change the floor area ratio for the project.
Lin Jou-min (林洲民), former head of the Taipei Urban Planning Commission, confirmed a Mirror Media report that he had expressed concern that the city government could be breaking the law if it agreed to change the FAR.
The objection was submitted in writing and the memorandum’s content agreed with findings in the Control Yuan’s corrective measure against the city in 2016, Lin said.
The Urban Planning Commission deemed the project to be a priority and thoroughly briefed Ko on it, Lin said.
“Whether Ko knew about [the project] is a question that we all can clearly answer in our mind,” he added.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
‘ARMED GROUP’: Two defendants used Chinese funds to form the ‘Republic of China Taiwan Military Government,’ posing a threat to national security, prosecutors said A retired lieutenant general has been charged after using funds from China to recruit military personnel for an “armed” group that would assist invading Chinese forces, prosecutors said yesterday. The retired officer, Kao An-kuo (高安國), was among six people indicted for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法), the High Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement. The group visited China multiple times, separately and together, from 2018 to last year, where they met Chinese military intelligence personnel for instructions and funding “to initiate and develop organizations for China,” prosecutors said. Their actions posed a “serious threat” to “national security and social stability,” the statement
RSS