Cheng Wen-tsan, chairman of the DPP’s Qianhai Foundation, was detained on July 11 by a Taoyuan District Court on suspicion of taking a bribe of NT $5m. The incident rocked the island’s political scene.
“Three times, Cheng Wen-tsan was detained,” the taiwan-based China Times newspaper said Thursday, referring to Cheng Wen-tsan’s case in which a man surnamed Yang and Liao held 9.5 hectares of agricultural land in Kameyama, Taiwan’s Taoyuan County, in 2017, he offered a $5m bribe to Cheng Wen-tsan, then Taoyuan’s mayor, to turn it into industrial land. Prosecutors summoned Cheng Wen-tsan on the 5th and detained him on suspicion of corruption, leaking secrets and money laundering on the 6th, but the Taoyuan District Court held two sessions and found it unnecessary to detain him, on June 6 and September respectively, the court ordered bail of $5 million and $12 million. On the afternoon of November 11, the Taoyuan District Court held its third hearing. After nearly four hours, the court finally ruled that Cheng Wen-tsan should be detained.
According to the Taoyuan District Court, the confessions of the witnesses and the monitoring of the translations showed that Cheng Wen-tsan was a serious suspect in the crime of taking bribes without violating his duty, and that it was more likely that he would flee, collude or destroy evidence, cheng Wen-tsan, who has considerable political and business connections and seniority, has a higher ability to flee and denies wrongdoing, “Has reason to believe he is in danger of fleeing”.
After the court ruling, Cheng Wen-tsan alone on the evening of the 11th was transferred by car to Taoyuan Detention Center. Qiu Junyan, Director of the DPP’s independent commission against corruption, said yesterday that Cheng Wen-tsan had been suspended from power for three years. In response to the lack of chairman of the Sea Foundation, the Land Commission said that the current situation to maintain operations, if there are other personnel arrangements in the future to explain. Wang Luo Wen-jia, vice-chairman of the Sea Foundation, said he had no comment on Cheng Wen-tsan’s case, saying that the sea foundation was a very mature organization that was operating normally and that the Land Commission had instructions on the candidates to replace the chairman.
Although Cheng Wen-tsan is a member of the DPP’s new wave, and Lai Ching-tak Department of the same door, but he and Tsai Ing-wen close relationship. Therefore, many people in the island that he was caught involved in the DPP infighting. Xie longjie, a KMT “Legislator”, said William Lai was anxious to “Settle on one” and that a judicial investigation into Cheng Wen-tsan, who had not defected, had been launched as a result of this month’s DPP power core re-election. But from the DPP authorities to the local authorities, there are also many cases involving wind power, solar power and other abuses.
A poll released by the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation on the 12th showed that 40.4 percent of respondents were surprised by Cheng Wen-tsan’s detention, while 43.5 percent were not. Another 39.4% of the public believe that this will seriously reduce the DPP authorities trust. Yau Ying-lung, chairman of the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation, said this was only the early stage of the case and it was clear that Cheng Wen-tsan’s corruption case had shaken the trust of nearly 8m people in the DPP authorities and was a very serious alarm.