Ex-prosecutor general jailed for leak to Ma

TAIPEI: A Taiwan court yesterday sentenced former Prosecutor-General Huang Shih-ming to 15 months in prison for leaking investigation information to President Ma Ying-jeou, dealing yet another blow to the embattled leader.

The Taiwan High Court ruled in favour of an earlier decision by the Taipei District Court, which sentenced Huang to 14 months in prison for leaking classified information during an ongoing investigation.

Huang resigned in March last year soon after the district court’s ruling and retired last month. He is the first prosecutor-general to be indicted and then found guilty.

The information leaked by Huang relates to an investigation into influence-peddling allegations against Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng of the ruling Nationalist Party (KMT).

The Supreme Prosecutors Office said in 2013 that Mr Wang lobbied to prevent prosecutors from appealing the not-guilty verdict of opposition legislator Ker Chienming in a breach-of-trust case.

Prosecutors said they discovered Mr Wang’s involvement in Mr Ker’s case when they were wiretapping Mr Ker’s phone as they were investigating his possible involvement in a bribery case.

Mr Ma, who doubled as the head of the KMT at the time, subsequently instructed the party’s disciplinary panel to strip Mr Wang of his membership.

Mr Wang, however, denied the allegation and successfully blocked his expulsion, which would have stripped him of his position as speaker of the legislative chamber, a position he has held since 1999.

Mr Ker, of the Democratic Progressive Party, referred himself to the legislature’s disciplinary committee for investigation. The committee threw the case out.

Labelling the Wang case the Taiwanese version of the Watergate scandal, Mr Ker argued that investigators’ allegations were part of a plot by Mr Ma to expose his own political rivals within the KMT and undermine the credibility of the DPP.

Mr Ma, whose second four-year term will end in May, 2016, resigned from the position of party boss last month following the party’s defeat in Nov 29 local polls.