PROSECUTOR-GENERAL TO ASK PRESIDENT TO PROVIDE LAFAYETTE TAPE
ROC Central News Agency
2006-03-07 21:59:35
Taipei, March 7 (CNA) If President Chen Shui-bian has an alleged tape recording critical evidence in the Lafayette frigate kickback scandal, "I believe the president will hand it over to the prosecutor-general," Justice Minister Shih Mao-lin said Tuesday.
Shih made the remarks in answer to a demand by opposition Kuomintang (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang that Shih ask the president to provide the tape to facilitate the investigation into the long-running scandal.
Lin quoted the March 18, 1994 edition of the Legislative Yuan Bulletin as saying that then-Legislator Chen Shui-bian told the legislature that he had "tape recorded evidence" about the Lafayette frigate procurement and Col. Yin Ching-feng, a navy procurement officer who died in suspicious circumstances in late 1993 as the case was unfolding.
Lin said that in 2003, he asked former State Public Prosecutor-General Lu Jen-fa about the tape, who was told by Huang Chih-fang, then-director of the Public Affairs Department of the Presidential Office, that the president "could not locate it" after moving his residence.
But in December 2005, according to Lin, Chen told the media that "a certain tape is still in my hands, part of which has been publicized while the other parts have not." "Apparently, " Lin said, "the tape has been found." He asked Shih to demand it from the president and asked what Shih would do with it.
Shih said that if the tape can be of help in the investigation of the case, the prosecutor-general would be interested in it and he added that he would forward Lin's views to the prosecutor-general.
Chen has nominated Taiwan High Court Prosecutor-General Hsieh Wen-ting to replace Wu Ying-chao as state public prosecutor-general, a nomination that has to be approved by the legislature before Hsieh can be formally appointed.
(By S.C. Chang)
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