CASH FOR DIPLOMACY MONEY RETURNED TO TAIWAN

China News Agency


Taipei, July 16 (CNA) Singapore authorities have recently wired US$1 million from the account of Ching Chi-ju to Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently, the latest installment in the return of funds Ching and another broker embezzled in a diplomatic fraud scandal.

The Singapore High Court ruled in May that Ching, a self-styled diplomatic broker, should return the US$29.8 million he and accomplice Wu Shih-tsai received from the ministry in September 2006 to pave the way to establish diplomatic ties with Papua New Guinea.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said that so far, the ministry has retrieved US$5.5 million of the total, with the US$1 million sum the first to be returned from Ching's assets since the Singapore High Court's verdict.

The ministry has said previously that it expects to retrieve roughly US$10.52 million of the embezzled sum.

After Ching and Wu told former Foreign Minister James Huang and former Vice Premier Chiou I-jen in 2006 that they could help Taiwan set up formal diplomatic relations with Papua New Guinea, US$29.8 million were wired to Ching's account in a Singaporean bank to have him go forward with the deal.

But not long after the money was wired to the middleman, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs found out that Papua New Guinea would not cut its diplomatic relations with Beijing.

By the time the ministry demanded that the two return the money, Ching had disappeared. Wu, however, was detained in Taiwan and later sentenced to a 26-month jail term on forgery and defamation charges.

In 2008, the ministry filed a complaint against Ching and Wu with Singapore's Supreme Court, demanding the return of the money. In February 2010, the Singapore High Court ruled Ching's assets to be frozen, before ordering the return of the funds in May.

Although Ching has the right to appeal the verdict to the Singapore Supreme Court, the Singapore authorities decided to enforce the court's ruling, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

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