Taiwan's High Court has ordered a local court to reconsider the release of former Vice Premier Cheng Wen-tsan after he was granted bail amid accusations he took bribes when he was mayor of Taoyuan from 2014 to 2022. Cheng's case has been sent back to the Taoyuan District Court.
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00:00The high court has ruled that Taiwan's former vice-premier Zeng Wenzhen's release on bail
00:05should be reconsidered.
00:07They will send back his corruption case to the Taoyuan District Court, which leaves it
00:12up to them whether or not to detain Zeng.
00:15Again, earlier prosecutors had filed a motion to appeal his release on Sunday.
00:20This was after Zeng was granted bail of over 150,000 U.S. dollars.
00:26Zeng has been accused of taking bribes while he was mayor of Taoyuan from 2014 to 2022,
00:32and prosecutors were angry that he was released when other suspects involved in the case were
00:37still being held without bail and so that Zeng should be held to the same standards.
00:42Now, Zeng is one of the biggest names in the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and served
00:48as vice-premier under the Tsai Ing-wen administration.
00:51He has already resigned from his latest post, appointed by President Lai Ching-de as the
00:55chair of the Straits Exchange Foundation, which handles business matters between Taiwan
01:00and China.
01:01And aside from stepping down from this role, Zeng also risks losing his membership to the
01:06party.
01:07The DPP is set to meet to discuss whether they should launch their own investigation
01:12into Zeng.
01:13Now, Zeng has maintained that he is innocent, but given that there have been previous scandals
01:18which ended with Taiwanese politicians serving jail time for corruption, including former
01:23DPP President Chen Shui-bian, the party will want to make sure that they don't get caught
01:28up in such a scandal again.
01:30Luffy Lee, Leon Lin and Joyce Zeng for Taiwan Plus.