A report on the death of a Taiwanese diplomat allegedly coerced into approving a US$400,000 expense claim would not be made public as promised due to an ongoing lawsuit, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday.
A seven-member MOFA team dispatched to Brazil on April 23 to investigate the death of Sao Paulo Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) section chief Felix Wang (王之化) had been due to report on its findings at the end of this month.
However, the ministry decided not to make the results of the probe public due to a lawsuit filed by Wang’s sister-in-law against Sao Paulo TECO head Feng Kwang-chung (馮光中), MOFA spokesman Jeff Liu (劉永健) said.
On April 18, the sister of Wang’s wife Yu Hui-min (俞惠敏) filed a lawsuit on Yu’s behalf against Feng with the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office, accusing Feng of defamation and bullying.
After Wang fell to his death from the 16th floor of his Sao Paulo residence on March 10, his widow publicly accused Feng of pressuring her husband into signing off on a US$400,000 refurbishment of Feng’s official residence in Brazil.
Feng threatened to frame Wang for embezzlement after Wang did not immediately approve Feng’s expense claim for the refurbishment, Yu said.
Yu also said that the abusive work environment under Feng might have been instrumental in Wang’s decision to take his own life.
She also accused Feng of attempting to spin a false narrative that her husband had been suffering from depression prior to his death.
On the same day Yu’s sister commenced legal action against Feng, MOFA announced that it was sending a team of civil servants from the ministry’s ethics, budget and accounting, and Latin American affairs departments to Sao Paulo to investigate Wang’s death.
The ministry said at the time that the results of the investigation would be released one month after the investigation team returned to Taiwan on April 29.
However, since Yu’s lawsuit against Feng has officially entered the judicial process, the ministry’s internal report can no longer be made public, Liu said.
The ministry would be handing the results of the internal investigation directly over to prosecutors, Liu added.
Asked about the case during a legislative session late last month, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Yui (俞大?) said that all expenses relating to the refurbishment of Feng’s residence were officially approved in June last year, while Wang did not take up his post in Sao Paulo until July last year.
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