Taipei, Dec. 14 (CNA) The Special Investigation Division (SID) under the Supreme Prosecutor's Office has begun examining files related to a highly sensitive case allegedly involving Tsai Ing-wen, the main challenger to incumbent President Ma Ying-jeou in the Jan. 14 election, officials said Wednesday. Because of the sensitivity in the TaiMed Inc. case, SID spokesman Chen Hung-ta said he and the others involved in the probe could not respond to reporters' questions regarding the government's decision in 2007 to invest in the biotech company. Opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokesman Chen Chi-mai accused the SID of being used like a tool to wage a political struggle against the DPP. Ruling Kuomintang (KMT) lawmakers suspected that Tsai, at the time vice premier of the government led by President Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party, might have violated the law by approving two National Development Fund (NDF) investments in the company. The ruling camp also raised the question of whether Tsai had broken a "revolving door" law that bans senior officials from joining companies whose businesses were under their supervision when they were in office. Tsai became chairperson of TaiMed several months after she left her Cabinet post. Prosecutor General Huang Shih-ming assigned prosecutors and other judicial officials on Tuesday to examine the National Development Fund files and cautioned them not to disclose any details of the investigation. Officials familiar with the SID operation said the investigators were just "looking at the files" at the NDF offices at the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD), rather than requesting that the files be sent to their offices -- a normal practice in non-urgent cases. The officials explained that such actions cannot be viewed as "searching the NDF offices" or "seizing" documents that could later be used in legal action. However, late Wednesday, CEPD Minister Christina Liu said prosecution investigators had officially requested CEPD cooperation in providing the files, some of which were "taken away" by the investigators. Liu noted that the SID members "had not yet entered into the stage of formal investigation" as they were just trying to "understand the case" by reading the files. Chen, the DPP spokesman, said the SID launched its probe soon after Liu mentioned several cases including the TaiMed saga. "The TaiMed case has by now become Taiwan's Watergate in which the ruling party tried to smear its political rival, and in a democratic country, this is absolutely a major scandal," he said. Both President Ma Ying-jeou and the SID's spokesman should explain to the people why the prosecution has become part of a certain party's election machine, Chen said. Tsai Huang-liang, DPP legislative caucus whip, said "the whole of state machine" has now been mobilized to influence the election by creating an impression that anyone involved in the TaiMed case is a criminal. Since the state machine is working against DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen, the opposition party will certainly react, said the legislator. How will the DPP respond to what it deemed as the ruling party's "political struggle?" Tsai said he would not rule out anything, including mass popular movement "from outside the establishment." Meanwhile, Ma's running mate Premier Wu Den-yih said he knows nothing about the SID move, but that he hopes all the facts pertaining to the TaiMed investment process will be revealed. He also noted that the declassification of the CEPD files was in response to a Legislative Yuan resolution. (By Liu Shih-yi and S.C. Chang)
留言列表
