A Pingtung County village warden was placed in pretrial detention for allegedly receiving money from Beijing to organize four trips to China last year, during which participants were told to vote for certain candidates, the Pingtung District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday.
A filing by prosecutors said that witness testimonies, documents and personal phones seized from Ke Hong-teng (柯宏騰), warden of Jhongliao Village (中寮) in Pingtung County’s Fangliao Township (枋寮), showed that Ke organized trips to China in June, September and November last year, as well as last month.
Ke and another Pingtung man surnamed Lo (羅), who allegedly assisted in organizing the trips, were charged with contravening the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法) and other election laws.
Photo: Lee Li-fa, Taipei Times
The number of local residents participating in the trips was unspecified.
Communications records on Ke’s personal phones indicate he has links to China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) officials, who, with the support of some Taiwanese businesspeople based in China, helped with the coordination and funding of the trips, prosecutors said.
“The trips led by Ke were mainly financed with TAO funding, with local Chinese officials paying for the participants’ accommodation, dinner banquets, tour guides and buses,” prosecutors said.
TAO officials met with Ke and tour groups to request that they vote for a certain party and its candidates in the elections on Saturday last week while emphasizing that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family” and “Taiwan should unify with China peacefully,” they said.
Background checks showed that Ke conducted business in China for many years and returned to Taiwan in the past few years, then ran in the local elections in November 2022, when he became a village warden, prosecutors said.
Ke has also been acting as a deputy of the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP) in southern Taiwan, they said.
After a preliminary investigation last month, prosecutors questioned Ke again this week, after he was denied bail on Thursday due to him being a possible flight risk and that he could tamper with evidence.
“Although the election is over, the nation’s justice system must not stop investigating election interference activities. Taiwan’s freedom and democracy should be safeguarded with rigorous efforts in investigating such misconduct,” prosecutors said.
The is the second case in Pingtung County this month regarding trips to China organized by local officials to influence voting behavior. In another case, two men were placed in pretrial detention.
In that investigation, two officials associated with the CUPP, surnamed Chang (張) and Huang (黃), led trips to China in September and October last year, Pingtung Chief Prosecutor Chen Ching-hui (陳靜慧) said in a statement.
The investigation showed that the duo took more than 20 voters to China’s Hunan and Jiangxi provinces, Chen said, adding that evidence indicates that all expenses were paid by local Chinese officials.
TAO officials met with the tour groups to tell them to vote for a specific political party and its candidates, Chan said.
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
HOLIDAY EXERCISE: National forest recreation areas from north to south offer travelers a wide choice of sights to connect with nature and enjoy its benefits Hiking is a good way to improve one’s health, the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency said, as it released a list of national forest recreation areas that travelers can visit during the Lunar New Year holiday. Taking a green shower of phytoncides in the woods could boost one’s immunity system and metabolism, agency Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) cited a Japanese study as saying. For people visiting northern Taiwan, Lin recommended the Dongyanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Taoyuan’s Fusing District (復興). Once an important plantation in the north, Dongyanshan (東眼山) has a number of historic monuments, he said. The area is broadly covered by
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
RSS