Taipei: Prosecutors have appealed a court decision to release Ko Wen-je, former Taipei mayor and Taiwan People's Party (TPP) former chairman, on bail, pending his trial on corruption charges. After a year in incommunicado detention, Ko was released on Monday on bail of NT$70 million (US$2.30 million), but he is required to wear an electronic tracking device and is barred from leaving the country.
According to Focus Taiwan, prosecutors have appealed Ko's release as they have arranged to question several witnesses in October. These include Huang Ching-mao, former director of Taipei City's Department of Urban Development; Huang Shan-shan, former Taipei deputy mayor and TPP lawmaker; and Wu Shun-min, assistant to Kuomintang (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Ying Hsiao-wei. The prosecutors argued that a defendant should be detained until witness questioning is complete.
Ying was released on bail of NT$30 million last Friday in the same corruption case, and prosecutors have also filed an appeal against her release. Prosecutors claim that when Ko was in detention, he instructed others to post social media messages under his name to collude with witnesses to give false testimony and to influence public opinion.
Prosecutors said that soon after Ko was released on Monday, he violated the bail terms by contacting two witnesses in the corruption case -- his aide Chen Chih-han and TPP Taipei City Councilor Chen You-cheng. After his release, Ko also claimed that another suspect in the corruption case was innocent, according to prosecutors.
The suspect, Lee Wen-tsung, finance chief of Ko's 2024 election campaign, is scheduled to be questioned on Sept. 16. Prosecutors allege that Ko was attempting to collude with him. The Taipei District Court granted Ko's release on Sept. 5, stipulating that he must stay at a registered address, wear an electronic monitoring device, remain in the country, and refrain from contacting other defendants or witnesses in the case.
After posting bail on Monday afternoon, Ko traveled to Hsinchu to see his mother and returned to Taipei about three hours later. Ko had been detained incommunicado since Sept. 5, 2024, and was indicted in December that year on charges related to accepting bribes of NT$17.1 million in a property development deal during his tenure as Taipei mayor and embezzling political donations during his 2024 presidential campaign.
Prosecutors are seeking a total sentence of 28.5 years for Ko, who has maintained his innocence and argued that the charges are politically motivated. Ten other suspects have also been indicted in the case, including Ying, Lee, former Taipei Deputy Mayor Pong Cheng-sheng, and Sheen Ching-jing, founder and chairman of the real estate conglomerate Core Pacific Group.