Former main of Taipei Ko Wen-je has been indicted over property improvement and marketing campaign finance scandals.
Taiwan’s former presidential candidate Ko Wen-je has been charged for allegedly accepting bribes and misusing political donations.
Ko was indicted by prosecutors on Thursday following probes into alleged corruption within the redevelopment of a buying centre in Taipei throughout his time as mayor of the Taiwanese capital and marketing campaign finance irregularities throughout his 2024 presidential run.
The Taipei District Prosecutors Workplace stated in an announcement that it was in search of a sentence of 28 and a half years in jail for Ko, who’s accused of accepting T$17.1 million ($522,392) in bribes and embezzling donations of greater than T$68 million.
Prosecutors additionally introduced prices towards a number of members of Ko’s Taiwan Individuals’s Occasion (TPP) over the misuse of political donations.
Ko, who served as mayor of Taipei from 2014 to 2022, beforehand denied wrongdoing in an actual property improvement case following his arrest in August, although he acknowledged the misreporting of marketing campaign funds.
A Taipei courtroom dominated the next month that Ko, a surgeon by coaching, must be launched from custody as prosecutors had not met the usual of there being a “excessive chance” he dedicated against the law.
Ko, who got here third in January’s presidential election with about 27 p.c of the vote, had been broadly seen as a contender for the presidency in 2028.
The TPP, which Ko co-founded in 2019, holds eight seats within the 113-member Legislative Yuan.
The get together has labored with the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang to cross a sequence of controversial authorized adjustments that the ruling Democratic Progressive Occasion says are geared toward limiting President William Lai Ching-te’s means to control the island.
