Taiwan’s presidential candidate accused of bribery, misuse of donations. political news
Former Taipei premier Ko Wen-je has been convicted in property development and campaign finance scandals.
Wen-je, a former Taiwanese presidential candidate, has been charged with allegedly taking bribes and abusing political donations.
Prosecutors indicted Ko on Thursday after investigating alleged corruption in the redevelopment of a shopping center in Taipei when he was mayor of the Taiwanese capital and campaign finance irregularities during his 2024 presidential bid.
The Taipei District Prosecutors Office said in a statement that it was seeking a 28-and-a-half-year prison sentence for Ko, who is accused of taking bribes worth T$17.1 million ($522,392) and embezzling donations worth more than T$68 million. Is.
Prosecutors also announced charges against several members of Ko’s Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) over misuse of political donations.
Ko, who served as mayor of Taipei from 2014 to 2022, previously denied wrongdoing in a real estate development case following his arrest in August, although he admitted misreporting campaign funds.
A court in Taipei ruled the next month that Ko, a trained surgeon, should be released from custody because prosecutors had not met the standard of a “high probability” that he committed a crime.
Ko, who finished third in the January presidential election with about 27 percent of the vote, was widely seen as a contender for the presidency in 2028.
The TPP, which Ko co-founded in 2019, has eight seats in the 113-member Legislative Yuan.
The party has worked with the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang to pass a series of controversial legal changes that the ruling Democratic Progressive Party says are aimed at curbing President William Lai Ching-te’s ability to rule the island. To ban.
