Nantou speaker may face 12 years in jail over corruption
Written by changthai11 on Thursday, October 9th, 2008
Nantou speaker may face 12 years in jail over corruption
The China Post news staff
NANTOU, Taiwan –– The Nantou District Prosecutors Office yesterday indicted Speaker Wu C
hi-hsiang of the Nantou County Council on charges of corruption, and requested Wu face a jail term of 12 years, a NT$1 million fine and an eight-year deprivation of his civil rights.
Prosecutors accused Wu of abusing his power as council speaker to pressure a sand and gravel exploitation yard operated by Chang Feng Co. to sell land lots at an extremely low price, in the attempt to benefit a concrete mixing company run by his family members, which was suffering a sand and gravel shortage.
The indictment said that Wu, after learning in April 2006 that the legal exploitation rights of Chang Feng would expire in May 2008, started to ask a construction director at the Nantou County Government to pretend to be his friend seeking to purchase land lots at the gravel yard at NT$1 million per hectare for the construction of a temple.
But the market value of the land lot’s exploitation per year was around NT$20 million per hectare, far higher than the NT$1 million offered by Wu’s “friend.”
Accordingly, the operator of the yard, surnamed Huang, repeatedly rejected Wu’s offer, which angered Wu, forcing him to run extensive reports on the illegal, “excessive” exploitation at the gravel yard, in the weekly magazine published by the county council.
Wu also tried other means to intimidate Huang to accept the low-price offer, but in vain.
Prosecutors said in the indictment that Wu’s practices are virtually a type of extortion, violating the Corruption Prevention Statute.
In response to the indictment, Wu voiced his grievance by saying that Chang Feng Co. did commit an excessive exploitation of up to 540,000 cubic meters of sand and gravel and that it should pay fines of up to NT$130 million for the illegal practice. The reports in the weekly can be well justified, Wu said, adding that he hoped the judicial system would return justice to him.
