With the charging of former Taipei Mayor and 2024 presidential candidate Ko Wen-je on corruption charges, TaiwanPlus spoke to Taipei-based attorney Colin Wu about the charges and how the case might move forward.
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00:00So, prosecutors have charged Kowinja with a number of crimes related to corruption.
00:06But what exactly is Ke being accused of here?
00:10Based on the press release from the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office, so the accusation
00:15against Mr. Ke can be divided into, I would say, three major areas.
00:20So the first will be Mr. Ke is accused of accepting two bribes in amount of 2.1 million
00:27and 15 million NT dollars.
00:30That is in terms of the floor area incentive for the Tsinghua City project.
00:35They increased the floor area ratio for the Core Pacific project to 840%, meaning that
00:41a total building can be constructed.
00:43And the second one would be the embezzlement of 6 million NT dollars, political donations
00:50from the Taiwan People's Party, the alleged purpose for the portrait rights, and the payment
00:56of salaries to the Mukke employees and the investment in other companies.
01:00Mukke is a company that is formed by Mr. Ke, I believe.
01:03The third major area will be the misuse of the 8 million funds from the Zhongwang Foundation
01:10to pay the salaries for the personnel involved in election-related activities.
01:15So I think another thing worth mentioning is that Ms. Ke pleaded not guilty during the
01:20investigation stage and also the detention hearing in the Taipei District Court.
01:25Prosecutors have recommended a sentence of more than 28 years if he is convicted of all
01:30of these crimes.
01:32That seems like quite a lot for white-collar crimes.
01:36Is this typical of this kind of case?
01:38So the 28 years is like an accumulation of all the accusations brought by the prosecutor.
01:45And typically, the court will not accept such a high sentence.
01:50So that is kind of, I think, just a suggestion from the prosecutor.
01:54The court has no obligation to follow such suggestions, especially for former government
02:00officials.
02:01Typically, the court will, if Mr. Ke is found guilty, so the court will issue or render
02:07a relatively, I would say, a longer period of sentence against the former government
02:12officials.
02:13Typically, how long does one of these cases take?
02:15Do you expect this to wrap up before the next local elections in two years?
02:20I don't think so, because in my, like, in the sense of the judges, like the practice
02:26of Chinese court, I don't think that the court will, like, take into the legislation election
02:32into consideration where rendering your judgment.
02:35So it will all depend on the progress of this case, such as whether how many witnesses will
02:40be subpoenaed during the hearings.
02:43So the more witnesses subpoenaed, the longer the trial will be.