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LAFAYETTE FILES SUBJECT TO TOP-LEVEL CONFIDENTIALITY: OFFICIAL

ROC Central News Agency

2005-11-17 22:31:14

    Taipei, Nov. 17 (CNA) The collection of court files brought back by two Taiwan prosecutors from Switzerland in connection with a kickback scandal involving Taiwan's procurement of six Lafayette-class frigates from France is secure and subject to top-level confidentiality, a senior official said Thursday.

    State Public Prosecutor-General Wu Ying-chao made the remarks at a Legislative Yuan Judicial Committee meeting where opposition Kuomintang (KMT) lawmakers claimed that the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) plans to use the Lafayette files as a campaign ploy to win more seats in the Dec. 3 "three-in-one" local elections. The high-profile Lafayette kickback scandal took place in the 1990s when the KMT was in power.

    Huang said there is speculation that National Security Council Secretary-General Chiou I-jen, who concurrently heads a DPP campaign strategy panel, has been given access to the newly acquired files. In response, Wu said the opposition legislators' misgivings were unfounded and unnecessary because the files are tightly guarded at the Supreme Public Prosecutors' Office and subject to maximum confidentiality.

    According to Wu, a total of three countries have acquired the Lafayette files. Under the terms of a judicial aid agreement with Switzerland, Wu said he cannot identify the two other countries.

    Speaking on the same occasion, Minister of Justice (MOJ) Shih Mao-lin said the files must be translated into Chinese by professional translators. To ensure that they are not leaked in the process of the investigations, Shih said the MOJ is drafting a package of working regulations and plans for a secure working place for observation of the translators.

    During the legislative session, KMT Legislator Lee Ching-hua urged prosecutors to refrain from making "selective revelations" from the files in the run-up to the elections for city/county chiefs, city/county councilors and township chiefs. Lee said he is afraid that premature exposure may be politically manipulated for electoral gains.

    Two prosecutors -- Tsai chiu-ming and Lo Jung-chien -- returned to Taipei earlier this week along with six cases of files provided by Swiss judicial authorities, including 46 bank accounts under the names of Andrew Wang, the key suspect in the Lafayette kickback scandal, his three sons and Wang's company, all of whose accounts have been frozen by the Swiss Federal Court.

    The files also include a number of previously unexposed overseas bank accounts related to the US$2.8 billion Lafayette deal, as well as information about relevant capital flow in Switzerland, Wu said, adding that the Swiss court files clearly document deposit times and destinations of the capital.

    Because of the enormous size of the files, Wu said it will take time for the investigation panel to complete the screening and interpretation of the documents.

    According to Wu, the files do not include slush funds that Wang remitted to other countries before the Swiss court froze his accounts. As a result, he said, it remains unclear whether the files will lead to any major breakthroughs in the grueling investigation into the high-profile corruption scandal.

    The handover of the Swiss bank files marked the first judicial aid case between Taiwan and Switzerland, Wu said.

    Wang was the agent in Taiwan of Thomson-CSF, the French company that sold the frigates to Taiwan. Thomson-CSF is now called Thales.

    Wang fled Taiwan following the death of navy Captain Yin Ching-feng, who is widely believed to have been murdered when he was about to blow the whistle on colleagues for allegedly taking kickbacks in the deal.

    Wang has been charged with murder, corruption, money laundering and fraud. The frigates had all been delivered to Taiwan by the mid-1990s, and both Switzerland and Liechtenstein have frozen funds in Wang's and his son's accounts that are allegedly linked to the case.

    The investigations began when the Taiwanese authorities concluded from the inflated price that the Lafayette deal constituted a serious case of international corruption.

    France, Liechtenstein and Taiwan, investigating whether the case had violated their laws, asked the Swiss authorities to hand over the bank documents to facilitate their investigations.

    According to media reports, some US$500 million remains frozen in 46 accounts with different banks in Switzerland as part of a Swiss investigation into alleged money laundering linked to the case. Authorities in neighboring Liechtenstein have frozen around US$27 million as part of their own investigations, the reports said.

(By Sofia Wu)

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