The Ciaotou District Court in Kaohsiung today sentenced a fugitive former executive at CPC Corp, Taiwan to 25 years in prison on 11 charges, including corruption.
Hsu Han (徐漢), the former head of the refinery division of state-run oil supplier CPC, has been missing since Thursday last week, when he removed his ankle monitor near Pingtung County’s Wanluan Township (萬巒) ahead of today’s sentencing.
Hsu, who is in his mid-60s, is also to have his civil rights deprived for nine years, the court ruled, although reasoning for the verdict has yet to be released.
Photo: Taipei Times
The ruling may be appealed.
Prosecutors “strongly suspect” that Hsu — who has family members overseas and who had applied unsuccessfully for permission to travel abroad for his son’s wedding while out on bail — headed south toward the Pingtung coast to be smuggled out of Taiwan by sea, the Chinese-language United Daily News reported.
The court attempted to notify Hsu’s bail guarantors on Friday and requested that he report to the court with them, but he failed to appear.
The court thereby forfeited his NT$5 million (US$155,694) bail and issued a warrant for his arrest.
Hsu was chief executive of CPC’s refinery division in Kaohsiung from 2019 to 2022.
Prosecutors accused Hsu of using his procurement authority limit of NT$200 million to steer eight purchasing contracts worth nearly NT$1 billion to select companies, receiving NT$16.86 million in kickbacks.
Prosecutors initiated searches in January 2022, indicting Hsu and 20 other suspects from three companies in May of that year for contravening the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例), among other crimes.
Hsu was detained in January 2022 and was granted bail in June 2023.
He was banned from leaving the country, traveling by sea or changing residence, and was required to wear an ankle monitor, report regularly to the court and use a monitored smartphone.
Today’s ruling was originally scheduled for Jan. 30, although it was postponed due to the case’s complexity, the large number of defendants and the volume of documents.
The court also required Hsu and three other defendants to attend today’s sentencing in person, with failure to appear resulting in immediate detention.
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