Taiwan businessman in North Korea oil probe attempts suicide
TAIPEI: A Taiwanese businessman who has been investigated and sanctioned by authorities on suspicion of selling oil to North Korea attempted suicide yesterday, prosecutors said.
Chen Shih-hsien was rushed to hospital in southern Kaohsiung city where he lives and was later discharged.
“We are aware of Chen’s attempted suicide. We will consider his health state before deciding on the date for his next questioning,” said Ke Kuang-hui, a spokesman for the Kaohsiung district prosecutor’s office.
An emotional Chen, sitting in a wheelchair, told reporters as he was leaving the hospital that he was ‘ framed by China’, according to Central News Agency.
“I would not do business with North Korea,” he was quoted by the agency as saying.
Taiwan’s justice ministry last week announced a ban on all financial dealings with Chen and froze his companies’ bank accounts due to the ongoing investigation into his activities.
Chen is being probed over links to a Hong Kong-registered ship that Seoul has said it detained in November. The ship, known as the Lighthouse Winmore, is suspected of transferring oil products to a North Korean vessel and breaching UN sanctions against the nuclear-armed regime.
Chen is under investigation for making a false declaration that a ship he chartered was bound for Hong Kong when it actually sailed to international waters to sell oil, according to prosecutors.
He has told prosecutors that he did not know the oil products were bound for a North Korean vessel, sources told AFP.
Local media said the ship he chartered was the Lighthouse Winmore and that Chen sold oil products through ‘a Chinese middleman’. The Lighthouse Winmore was impounded in November by South Korean authorities after it allegedly transferred 600 tonnes of oil to a North Korean vessel, according to Seoul. — AFP