Ex-president's son, daughter-in-law barred from leaving Taiwan
ROC Central News Agency
Taipei, Aug. 25 (CNA) Former President Chen Shui-bian's son and daughter-in-law have been barred from leaving Taiwan pending investigations into their roles in a suspected money laundering case embroiling the former first family, prosecutors said Monday.
The overseas travel ban was issued after the young couple were questioned as suspects in the high-profile money scandal for nearly three hours that afternoon.
Prosecutors from the Special Investigation Division under the Supreme Prosecutors Office issued subpoenas to the couple -- Chen Chih-chung and his wife Huang Jui-ching -- about 10 hours after their return from the United States.
Chu Chao-liang, the spokesman for the team investigating the suspected money laundering case, said the prosecution took into consideration the couple's health state before summoning them for questioning just 10 hours after their flight arrived.
"Neither of the couple asked for a break in the interrogations for fatigue during the nearly-three-hour session," said Chu.
While the couple were still in the United States, the prosecution served subpoenas demanding them to come forward for questioning Aug. 29.
"As they came back earlier than expected, we decided to summon them for questioning today, " said Lin Chi-hui, another prosecutor involved in the investigation.
Asked why the prosecution did not arrest them at the airport immediately upon their return, Lin said that because the case happened more than six months ago, they would have had ample opportunity had they decided to collude in perjuring themselves and that there was therefore little point in detaining and separating them.
During the questioning, according to media reports, the couple refused to sign authorization letters allowing the prosecution to scrutinize their Swiss bank accounts.
The refusal could slow progress in investigating the case, but legal experts said that the prosecution will still be able to get the documents they need through judicial assistance from Swiss authorities.
Chen Chih-chung told a large crowd of reporters waiting at the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport early Monday that the family's finances have always been managed by his mother, Wu Shu-jen, and that he and his wife were only being "dominated" to offer some help.
"We just did whatever mother told us to do. It was impossible for us to question (the origin of the money)," Chen said.
Huang stressed that she was only a "figurehead" used by her mother-in-law to open bank accounts overseas for cash deposits and that she and her husband had never thought of evading judicial investigation by refusing to return to Taiwan, as some Taiwanese media had speculated.
"Since our roles in the case are so obvious, we have no need to flee and make ourselves fugitives," she said.
Chen Chih-chung, who had gone to the United States together with his wife to enroll in the law school of the University of Virginia, said he requested that the enrollment be postponed for one year in the wake of the exposure of the alleged money-laundering case, but the university turned down his request and asked him to file an application next year if he still wishes to study at the school.
The couple departed Taiwan for the United States just a few days before Next magazine, a weekly tabloid, ran a story Aug. 13 claiming that Huang had laundered money for the former first family by secretly wiring NT$300 million (US$9.55 million) overseas in 2006, after the exposure of the "state affairs fund" embezzlement case implicating the former president and his wife.
The story was suspected to have been based on information leaked to the magazine by Taiwanese investigative authorities, which received a report in January from the international anti-money laundering organization Egmont Group that detailed the status of overseas bank accounts held by members of the former first family in other countries, including the United States, the Cayman Islands, Singapore and Switzerland.
However, allegedly due to concealment by the former head of the Investigation Bureau, prosecutors investigating the "state affairs fund" case were unaware of the existence of the report until the publication of the story by Next magazine.
The release of the story also coincided with the recent reception by Taiwan of a request by Swiss authorities for assistance in probing alleged money laundering by Chen Chih-chung and Huang Jui-ching in Switzerland.
Last Monday, prosecutors listed the former president and his wife, as well as Wu' s older brother Wu Ching-mao, Chen Chih-chung and Huang Jui-ching, as suspects in the alleged money-laundering case.
Questioned by prosecutors last Friday, the former first lady said the US$21 million in overseas bank accounts under the name of her elder brother and daughter-in-law was the balance of political contributions for the campaigns of her husband in two mayoral elections and two presidential elections from 1993 to 2004.
Wu's statement was consistent with that of former President Chen Shui-bian, who openly confessed Aug. 14 that he had lied about his election campaign expenses and that his wife wired surplus funds from the election campaign contributions into overseas bank accounts.
However, Chen claimed that all the surplus funds were handled by his wife and that he had no idea his wife had wired the funds abroad until early this year.
The former president denied the money had any connection with the "state affairs fund" case, in which the former first lady was charged with corruption and forgery in November 2006 for using receipts provided by others to claim reimbursements totaling NT$14.8 million from the president's "state affairs fund" between July 2002 and March 2006.
Chen, who had immunity from prosecution while in office, was named as a co-offender in the case and was probed as soon as he stepped down from the presidency May 20. (By Sofia Wu) ENDITEM/J
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
