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Councilor faces detention for Taipei Dome talk

Councilor faces detention for Taipei Dome talk

Councilor faces detention for Taipei Dome talk

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taipei City Councilor Wang Shih-chien could face 50 days in detention for alleging that a key city government official had accepted money from Taipei Dome developer Farglory Group, reports said Wednesday.
An appeal against the Taipei District Court verdict was still possible, though. The sentence could also be commuted to a NT$50,000 (US$1,570) fine.
The city and the development company have been locked in a conflict about the completion of the stadium project for more than a year and a half, but the surprising element in the Wang case was that both sides involved were linked to the Democratic Progressive Party.
During a television interview last January, Wang, a veteran DPP politician, hinted that someone on the city government team had accepted “an unfairly high amount of money” to agree to negotiations between the city and Farglory about the Taipei Dome.
Wang added that Farglory Chairman Chao Teng-hsiung had said during a court hearing that the person in the case was “the person who was leaving the city team,” a reference to city adviser Hung Chih-kun, a former DPP official.
Hung demanded an investigation into the matter by the city’s anti-corruption body, and attacked Wang in an online statement. “The city councilor did not need to provide evidence when defaming people, but the target of his slander was forced to defend himself and provide evidence of his own innocence to wipe the dirt off the bottom of his shoes,” Hung wrote.
On Wednesday, the court ruled that Wang had been unable to provide evidence of his allegations, and he indeed was guilty of damaging Hung’s reputation.
Writing online, the latter thanked friends and his attorney for their support, and said that even though he had met with many obstacles on his road, his end target was still the right one.