The court asked for Ko’s detention to be extended

WIDENING:
The Taipei District Prosecutor’s Office yesterday issued an international wanted notice for the arrest of Ko’s former secretary, who is in Japan.

• By Chen Tsai-ling and Jason Pan / Staff Reporters

Prosecutors yesterday asked to extend the detention of former Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and former Taipei Vice Mayor Pong Cheng-sheng (彭振聲) in an ongoing corruption investigation as the investigation widened into alleged accounting fraud and concealment political donations to Ko’s Taiwan People’s Party (TPP).

In a related development, the Taipei District Prosecutor’s Office yesterday issued an international wanted notice for the arrest of Hsu Chih-yu (許芷瑜), Ko’s former secretary, who is in Japan.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that it had taken steps to cancel Hsu’s passport to prevent her from fleeing to other countries.

Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times

Ko and Pong were placed in judicial custody early last month over allegations of wrongdoing related to a Taipei shopping mall redevelopment project involving Core Pacific City Group.

Prosecutors in Taipei must file an extension request before the end of the legally mandated two-month detention period.

Ko is a suspect in a corruption investigation for violating the Anti-Corruption Law (貪污治罪條例), being charged under Article 4 for “requesting or taking bribes or other illegal profit… to violate official duties” and under Article 6, for “seeking unlawful gain for himself or others in matters under his charge or supervision, knowing clearly that the act is in violation of the law,” the court said.

Although Ko has completed his term as mayor, he still wields a lot of influence and is a major suspect in the case and could conspire with witnesses, so his detention will be extended, the court statement said.

Pong faces corruption charges related to a public official owning assets of unknown origin, attempting to destroy evidence during an investigation and giving testimony that contradicted statements provided by other defendants, and would therefore be extended the detention to prevent complicity of his testimony with other witnesses, the court said.

When he was mayor, Ko allegedly instructed Pong to take over the Taipei City Government’s approval of the Core Pacific City redevelopment project by heading the Taipei City Planning Commission, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors suspect that Ko and Pong abused their authority by giving undue financial benefits to Core Pacific Group and its chairman Sheen Ching-jing (沈慶京), who in return donated tens of millions of NT dollars to the TPP.

Meanwhile, prosecutors on Thursday summoned Keelung Mayor George Hsieh (謝國樑) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), who said his family donated US$2 million ($62,364) to the TPP, for possible violation of the Act Political Donations (政治獻金法).