• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Court clears six former navy officers of corruption charge

ROC Central News Agency

2010/06/25 23:11:59

By Chen Yi-wei, Lai You-chia, An Chih-hsiang and Maubo Chang

Taipei, June 25 (CNA) Six former Navy officers who were charged with corruption in the country's 1991 purchase of six Lafayette-class missile frigates from France were found not guilty by the Taiwan District Court Friday.

After a trial of almost 10 years, the court said there was insufficient evidence to convict retired Vice Admirals Lei Hsueh-min, Yao Neng-chun, retired Rear Admiral Wang Chin-sheng, and three other middle-level staff officers responsible for the acquisition of the frigates of corruption.

Lei served as the chief of the Navy's Warship Management Office at the time while Yao served as the office's executive director.

They and the four others were indicted in July 5, 2001 for failing to check the price asked by French contractor Thomson-CSF (now known as Thales) for the six Lafayettes.

Because of their dereliction of duty, the indictment said, the cost of the deal increased sharply from US$2.45 billion when negotiations on the deal began in 1990 to US$2.8 billion when the contract was sealed in 1991.

The prosecutors said in the indictment that the French contractor overcharged Taiwan's government for the warships and paid at least US$160 million in kickbacks to brokers to secure the deal.

Lei, the most senior officer among the accused, said he was glad the court had cleared them of the charges even though it took almost 10 years and Yao had already passed away.

He urged the prosecutors not to appeal the verdict to spare the defendants the ordeal of another time-consuming trial, insisting that they were innocent and saying the indictment was not supported by evidence.

The original indictment was controversial within Taiwan's judicial ranks.

Incumbent Prosecutor General Huang Shyh-ming, who was the chief of the Taipei District Prosecutors Office in 2001, revealed at a Legislative Yuan hearing recently that he lost the job because he refused to bow to pressure from then Prosecutor-General Lu Ren-fa to indict Lei and the five others in the case.

It was Huang's successor, Shih Mao-lin, who approved the indictment.

Both Lu and Shih have retired and didn't respond to Huang's claims.

The case came to Taiwan's attention in August 1996 when a court in Geneva, Switzerland ordered Thomson-CSF to pay self-declared middleman Edmond Kwan 160 million francs in commission for the sale.

Taiwan's judicial authorities were drawn to the court ruling because the contract for the frigates explicitly forbid commissions to be paid on the sale.

However, Taipei's attempts to track down the allegedly massive kickbacks were stonewalled because the arms broker believed to have masterminded the sale, Andrew Wang, fled Taiwan in 1993 before investigators could question him.

When President Chen Shui-bian assumed office in 2000, he ordered the reopening of the probe, which resulted in the indictment of the six Navy officials.

Local prosecutors asked Swiss authorities in 2001 to freeze the US$520 million in Wang's bank account and indicted him and his five family members in the case in 2006, but his trial has never started because he refused to return to Taiwan to answer the charges.

Prosecutors in charge of the investigation of the case said they could not convince Swiss authorities to transfer Wang's funds back to Taiwan unless they were determined by a court to be illegally obtained gains.