Taiwan's ex-President barred from traveling abroad

Prosecutors bar Chen Shui-bian traveling abroad
STAFF WRITER, WITH CNA
Monday, Aug 18, 2008, Page 1

Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has been prohibited from leaving the country after he was found to have large cash deposits abroad, the Supreme Prosecutors Office (SPO) said on Saturday night.

Prosecutor Chu Chao-liang (朱朝亮) said the overseas travel ban was issued after extensive discussion by the SPO’s Special Investigation Task Force.

“The main reason is that Chen has US$21 million deposited in overseas bank accounts belonging to his family members,” Chu said.

Chu and two colleagues searched Chen’s home and office and questioned Chen and his wife Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) on Saturday on whether there were any links between the “state affairs fund” case and money-laundering allegations.

Chu’s team said they learned that Chen had four undisclosed bank accounts used for political donations for the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections — three for 2000 and one for 2004.

The accounts were opened in Chen’s name, but Wu handled all transfers, the prosecutors said in a statement.

The sum of transfers to and from the accounts totaled several hundreds of millions of NT dollars, they said, and many deposits were as much as NT$10 million. During the 2004 presidential campaign, one of the accounts received a NT$50 million deposit. Prosecutors said they were tracking the source.

Investigations of all of the former president’s accounts for his legislative, mayoral and presidential campaigns found that Wu had transferred money to her own bank account and the accounts of her husband, son, daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law and brother Wu Ching-mao (吳景茂). Prosecutors said all would be summoned for questioning.

Prosecutor Chou Wen-hsiang (周文祥) of the Tainan District Prosecutors Office raided Wu Ching-mao’s home in Tainan County’s Matou Township (麻豆) on Saturday and seized documents and data, including a computer.

Wu Ching-mao was not at home on Saturday, but Chu’s team said it would summon him today.

Wu Ching-mao has also been prohibited from leaving the country.

Meanwhile, Wu Li-hua (吳麗華), the mother of Chen’s daughter-in-law Huang Jui-ching (黃睿靚), was seen yesterday at Newark International Airport in New Jersey with Chen Chih-chung’s newborn baby girl Chen Chieh-hsin (陳潔歆).

Wu was about to fly back to Taiwan with her granddaughter when she was spotted by reporters.

She told reporters that she knew nothing about Huang’s overseas bank account.

She said Chen’s son Chen Chih-chung (陳致中) would return to Taiwan this week after registering at the University of Virginia and confirmed that Chen Chih-chung was in Virginia at the moment.

Chen Chih-chung is planning to study law.

The former president admitted on Thursday that he lied about his campaign funds for his two mayoral elections and two presidential elections between 1993 and 2004 and that his wife had wired surplus campaign contributions overseas.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY LEE HSIN-FEN

I've always hated that cunt, I'm glad the rest of the country's catching up with me.

Wooh, you used the c-word.
That's some mightly strong dislike there Gabo.

Damn.. dropping the "F-bomb" is one thing... but the C-word!!! Dude is pissed, I'd say.

He's a smug little asshole, and he was a smug little asshole for the whole length of his term. You saw him in Press Conferences with his smug little smile, and he always refered to himself in the third person which PISSES ME OFF. Lame.

Then when the claims of corruption came up, they were like "oooh you can't see these documents... national security is at risk!" but not there's a new president in charge, they were like "well, no it isn't... it just makes you look bad".

There are so many reasons to hate the guy... I could go on and on.

I agree, anyone who refers to themselves in third person is a cunt indeed.

Emma says so. Schmiggens agrees.

This is the ex-president's daughter going nuts among a bunch of reporters:

http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=o89jZ1dDekk

A lot of it is her accusing different parties of the same corruption as her father, and screaming this or that about people in her father's political party (or ex-political party; he resigned from the party because of the corruption). She at one point threatens to call her mother to 'tell on them' (the reporters).

Honestly, the media only follow her around because she goes bat shit crazy so often.

Harassed former first daughter fingers DPP
The China Post news staff
Tuesday, August 19, 2008

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Chen Hsing-yu, daughter of former president Chen Shui-bian, yesterday claimed irately that over the years, her father used the funds he mustered to help the election campaigns of many Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweights, and she dared them to say that they were all clean about how the funds were used.

Chen Hsing-yu, a dentist, made the remarks when she was on her way to work but was beset by a group of reporters seeking to question her about her father's suspected money laundering through two Swiss bank accounts owned by Chen's daughter-in-law, Huang Jui-ching.

Last week, the ex-president admitted that his wife had remitted US$20 million in surplus funds from campaign contributions to his two mayoral elections and two presidential elections into his daughter-in-law's Swiss bank accounts.

Before answering questions from reporters, Chen Hsing-yu said that "My father asked me not to say anything about the case," and then tried to let her mother know that she would tell reporters the whole story.

Then, Chen junior shouted that all the money wired abroad was all campaign election budget surplus.

Then she angrily described the investigation of her father's suspected money laundering as a "political struggle" designed to put all her family members to death.

"Who among the Kuomintang and Democratic Progressive Party politicians dare say that they have filed honest reports about the surplus funds from their election campaign contributions?" she asked.

"Did any of those DPP members who received election subsidies from my father file reports honestly about those funds? Or did they report their surplus funds honestly?" she continued.

She specifically cited former premier Su Tseng-chang, former premier Frank Hsieh and Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu as among those DPP members who had received financial assistance from her father during their election campaigns.

Later in the day, Su's staff responded by saying that Su had never received any donations from Chen Shui-bian, although he was grateful for the former president stumping for him during several election campaigns.

Hsieh's office also issued a statement saying that it was a natural thing among party members to help one another seek financial contributions during election campaigns.

But the statement also stressed that during the latest presidential race on March 22, Hsieh didn't receive any donations from Chen Shui-bian.

For her part, Kaohsiung City Mayor Chen Chu told TV reporters that the real issue is not about how Chen Shui-bian obtained the campaign contributions but about why his surplus funds were wired abroad.

Meanwhile, Lawmaker Ke Chien-ming, convener of the legislative caucus of the DPP, said that what Chen Hsing-yu said was true, adding that he also received financial assistance from ex-President.

Ke also called for authorities to investigate whether President Ma Ying-jeou has honestly reported election campaign contributions he received during his Taipei mayoral elections and the presidential race.

Wang Tuoh, secretary general of the DPP, said that emotional reactions by Chen Hsing-yu to the alleged money laundering scandal involving her family members are fully understandable.

Wang said that the DPP is doing its best to mitigate the impact of the case on the party.

I really like the title of the above article.

Haha yeah, that's too funny.

This is an excerpt from an opinion column that appears every week in a local paper.

Quote :

In case you passed out in Carnegies [gaboman notes: a local bar slash eatery. Quite nice, really.] a week ago and just peeled yourself off the floor, former prez Chen admitted that he and his wife had more than US$20 million squirreled away in Swiss bank accounts. He claimed it was all leftover, unspent campaign donations going back to the 1990s.

He then proceeded with a long series of mind-bending explanations that can be summarized as follows:

1. It was my wife’s fault.
2. I didn’t know where my US$20 million was until just a few months ago.
3. When I realized where it was, I decided to donate it to the nation.
4. Except that several months later, I still hadn’t done that.
5. But I was planning to, honest.
6. I didn’t steal the money, because I was gonna give it back.
7. Everybody else does it too.
8. Lien Chan (連戰), James Soong (宋楚瑜) and Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) are even worse liars than me.
9. Those guys really suck.
10. Can I go home now? I don’t feel well.

Those points are quite funny, particularly because those are honestly and truly the defenses he's come out with in just the past week.

It goes on to add a few more highlights from the week.

Quote :

Other highlights:

• The former first lady’s brother admitted he’d used “underground” banks to send some money abroad for his sis. After all, what are brothers for?
  
• A-bian’s daughter had a massive, shrieking meltdown in front of the national TV news media, all of which was given excruciating, repeated play on local stations.
  
• A-bian’s son was a no-show at his University of Virginia law school orientation, perhaps realizing he could get a far better education in law by helping defend his family rather than living in a boring old Charlottesville library.
  
• And the former first lady’s sister-in-law “passed out” during questioning, thereby avoiding having to add anything helpful to the investigation.

btw, A-Bien is the ex-president. This is kind of a friendly nick name he gave to himself, and this is what he refers to himself as (like I said, he refers to himself in the third person).

Ex-investigator indicted in Chen case
DELAYED DETAILS: Prosecutors said the former Investigation Bureau chief did not pass on information about the overseas accounts of the former president’s family
By Ko Shu-Ling
STAFF REPORTER, WITH CNA
Friday, Aug 29, 2008, Page 1

Yeh Sheng-mao (葉盛茂), former head of the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau, was indicted yesterday for withholding information about former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) possible involvement in money laundering.

Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office spokesman Lin Chin-chun (林錦村) said prosecutors were seeking a jail term of two years and six months for Yeh.

Lin said Yeh, who stepped down from his post as bureau chief on July 16, withheld information about overseas bank accounts in the names of Chen’s family members.

Lin said Yeh was supposed to relay the information — which the bureau’s Anti-Money Laundering Center obtained on Jan. 27 from the international anti-money laundering Egmont Group — to the Supreme Prosecutor Office.

But the Supreme Prosecutor Office never received the information, Lin said.

The director of the Anti-Money Laundering Center asked Yeh about the information in March and was told that Yeh would give it to Prosecutor-General Chen Tsung-ming (陳聰明) in person, Lin said, but the prosecutor-general said that he had never received the information.

Yeh later said he had forgotten to pass on the information to Chen Tsung-min because the country was in the middle of a fiercely contested presidential election and he stepped down two months after the new administration took office on May 20.

Lin said a search of Yeh’s home in Muzha (木柵), Taipei City, last week yielded a photocopy of the information from Egmont, but not the original document.

“The fact that Yeh was careful to keep a photocopy of the information disproves his claim that he completely forgot about the whole matter,” Lin said.

Late last month, two Swiss prosecutors asked Taiwanese authorities for help investigating a case of suspected money laundering, with US$21 million reportedly placed in Swiss bank accounts in the name of Chen Shui-bian’s daughter-in-law.

Lin said it was not the first time that Yeh, who was appointed in 2001 by Chen Shui-bian to head the bureau, had withheld information about the former first family.

In 2006, the bureau failed to pass on to prosecutors information it had obtained about possible money laundering by first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍), Lin said.

Lin said Yeh maintained that he had conveyed the information in 2006 to then prosecutor-general Wu Ying-chao (吳英昭), a claim Wu has rebutted.

In related news, Chen Shui-bian’s office yesterday criticized the judiciary for leaking details of the case and expressed regret over media reports that the office said distorted the facts.

In a statement, the office expressed displeasure with leaks of what had been said by witnesses in interviews and suggested that prosecutors might have deliberately leaked the information to reporters.

“We would like to call on the public to stop and condemn such an act,” the statement said.

The office also criticized media outlets that they said had drawn false conclusions and distorted the testimony of witnesses.

The statement followed a report in yesterday’s Chinese-language China Times that said the testimony given by former Presidential Office treasurer Chen Cheng-hui (陳鎮慧) was detrimental to Chen Shui-bian’s case and contradicted his statements.

The office dismissed the report, saying that Chen Cheng-hui knew nothing about the campaign funds in question because as the treasurer at the campaign headquarters for the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, she was only in charge of the headquarters’ finances.

The money Chen Cheng-hui handled was declared in full and there were no leftover funds, the statement said. In addition, prosecutors had not asked Chen Cheng-hui about the leftover campaign funds Chen Shui-bian’s wife wired overseas, the statement said.

The statement also rebutted reports that witnesses had told prosecutors that Chen Shui-bian contributed NT$40 million to former premier Frank Hsieh’s (謝長廷) Taipei mayoral campaign and NT$20 million to former premier Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) campaign for Taipei County commissioner. The issue was mentioned by prosecutors, but not confirmed by witnesses, the statement said.

Basically the guy that the above article is about is the head of the Taiwanese version of the CIA.

The man's an idiot, but he knows how to work a crowd. He appeared in his home city last week (while prosecutors executed a search warrant on his home in Taipei), spouting some BS that everybody was cheering for. One particularly funny part had him saying something along the lines of "today, they search my house! Tomorrow, it could be yours!!!"

I mean, what the fuck is that? How could it possibly be theirs? Is anyone in the crowd being investigated for defrauding the country out of hundreds of millions of dollars? No, buddy, that's all you.

The ex-president's ex-political party is at odds about him. For some unknown reason, he still has plenty of supporters. It's outrageous. He's been holding rallies all ove the place with heaps of people attending... but then there's this, with the political part itself turning against one another.

I guess you would be surprised if the Taiwanese politicians didn't already have a reputation for going at one another like this. Friggin' dumbasses.


DPP members, officials clash at party office in Taipei
By Rich Chang
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, Oct 14, 2008, Page 1

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials and members clash at the party’s office in Taipei yesterday over remarks DPP Secretary-General Wang Tuoh made about supporters of former president Chen Shui-bian. 
PHOTO: CNA
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials clashed yesterday morning after members loyal to former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) held a protest at the party’s office in Taipei.

Huang Chin-lin (黃慶林), director of the DPP’s Taipei branch, led dozens of Chen supporters to the DPP office to protest remarks by DPP Secretary-General Wang Tuoh (王拓) against Chen.

Wang on Saturday criticized party officials who attended rallies in support of Chen after DPP Deputy Secretary-General Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) was spotted at an event in Kaohsiung with the former president.

Wang said he believed it was a “negative” thing for party officials to participate in the rallies, adding that politicians should be able to “tell right from wrong.”

The protesters asked Wang to apologize and step down.

“Protect Tsai Ing-wen [DPP chairwoman], Wang Tuoh step down,” they sang.

DPP Vice Secretary-General Hung Yao-fu (洪耀福), who met the protesters on behalf of the party, told them it was the chairwoman’s right to decide on the appointment and removal of DPP officials, adding that if they supported Tsai, they should respect her decisions.

“Everyone should remember that after A-bian [Chen Shui-bian] held a press conference [admitting he failed to fully declare his campaign funds], DPP Taipei branch Director Huang Chin-lin was the first DPP member to ask the party to expel Chen,” Hung said.

Huang and the protesters then rushed toward Hung, triggering a clash between protesters, DPP officials and office staff.

The altercation lasted about 10 minutes, whereupon Huang asked the protesters to leave, adding they would come back tomorrow, when the party’s Central Standing Committee is scheduled to meet.

Accompanied by Tsai, Huang yesterday afternoon apologized for the incident.

“Former president Chen’s performance in his eight-year term will be judged by history, but since DPP grassroots supporters remain passionate about Chen, it is hard to control their behavior,” he said.

Tsai yesterday called for party unity and barred DPP officials from pro or anti-Chen rallies.

Tsai also asked officials not to speak publicly on the matter.

Separately, the DPP yesterday said it would stage a protest this weekend against a planned visit by China’s top cross-strait negotiator, Chen Yunlin (陳雲林).

Although the date of the visit has yet to be set, National Security Council Secretary-General Su Chi (蘇起) said it would be best if it took place before the APEC summit that opens on Nov. 22 in Peru.

Addressing concerns over protocol for a possible meeting between the Chinese official and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Su said Ma would “certainly uphold dignity and parity.”