TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Chiayi District Court on Friday found 10 members of the Kuomintang Chiayi County Branch guilty of forgery in connection with a failed recall campaign against Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷).

The defendants, including branch secretary-general Yang Fu-cheng (楊富程), were sentenced to between one year and one year and 10 months in prison, with suspended sentences of three to five years, per Liberty Times.

According to the ruling, Yang recruited an unwitting member of the public, surnamed Hsu (徐), to serve as the nominal head of the recall campaign. Party officials, assisted by some family members, then copied information from the Chiayi County KMT membership list to forge recall petition signatures.

The court said all 10 defendants confessed to the charges, and their accounts were consistent with witness testimony and other evidence.

Separately, prosecutors on Wednesday searched the KMT Chiayi City Branch headquarters as part of an investigation into alleged petition forgeries linked to another failed recall campaign against DPP Legislator Wang Mei-hui (王美惠), per UDN.

KMT Legislator Wu Tsung-hsien (吳宗憲) commented on the investigation, saying the party would provide the necessary assistance to the 13 individuals taken in for questioning, per CNA. 

The KMT urged prosecutors to adhere to the principles of proportionality and the presumption of innocence, arguing against what it described as high-intensity or large-scale searches that could have a chilling effect, per Tai Sounds.