Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday launched a nationwide crackdown on organized crime and corruption following a deadly shooting in Tainan.
Tainan City Fishermen’s Association chairman Lin Shih-chien (林士傑) was shot and killed in front of his residence in the city on Monday morning.
Police reviewed footage from surveillance cameras showing what appears to be a male gunman ambushing Lin and shooting him several times at close range.
Photo: CNA
Before his death, Lin was accused of intimidating Tainan City Councilor Fang I-fong (方一峰), of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), to get Fang to vote for Democratic Progressive Party-nominated Chiu Li-li (邱莉莉) during the city council’s election for president and vice president in 2022.
Lin was cleared of any wrongdoing by the Tainan District Court in April, but prosecutors appealed the verdict.
The High Court postponed yesterday’s hearing about the appeal to Saturday.
“The government has two main initiatives: economic development and maintaining security. Both proceed simultaneously,” Cho told lawmakers in a plenary session yesterday.
“On June 25, we launched an anti-corruption initiative and a crackdown on organized criminal groups intervening in green energy projects in southern Taiwan,” he said. “We will subsequently implement similar initiatives nationwide to show the government’s determination to address the issue.”
Cho told reporters on the sidelines of the session that thanks to the previous initiatives, major progress had been made cracking down on corruption among government officials.
One of the examples was a case involving Yunlin County Council Speaker Huang Kai (黃凱), who was detained last week on suspicion of accepting bribes totaling millions of New Taiwan dollars from photovoltaic service operators, he said.
“I have heard security briefings from the Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Justice, National Police Agency and Criminal Investigation Bureau. I have asked officials in these agencies to engage in a more forceful search for suspects and to crack down on crimes,” Cho said.
The government has listed Lin’s murder as an urgent issue, and government agencies would report to the public as soon as there is major progress in the case, he said.
Cho asked for legislature’s support in passing four bills that would enable the government to better tackle scams: the fraud prevention draft act and technology investigation and protection draft act, and amendments to the Communication Security and Surveillance Act (通訊保障及監察法) and Money Laundering Control Act (洗錢防制法).
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