Posted on 07/05/2004 5:29:00 AM PDT by Khurkris
The Presidential Office has yet to decide whether to form an independent organ to investigate March 19's shootings that slightly wounded President Chen Shui-bian and Vice President Annette Lu, the office Secretary General James Huang said yesterday. Chen is still discussing the issue with chiefs of the major government agencies, including the Cabinet, the Legislature Yuan and the Control Yuan, the Central News Agency quoted Huang as saying.
The president has also sought opinions from Lu and the Presidential Office's human rights committee, which Lu heads, according to Huang, who was speaking during a press conference.
Creating an independent investigation body has been the hope of the opposition, whose candidates Lien Chan and James Soong lost the March 20 presidential election narrowly to Chen and Lu.
Opponents fret that instituting a more powerful organ would be a disrespect of the judicial agencies as well as the Control Yuan, the government watchdog, and may clash with the Constitution.
This should not be a cause of worry, top Presidential Office officials said.
Setting up an ad hoc agency responsible for handling the probe is permitted by law and Chen will explain to those worried about this once he completes the survey, Huang said.
Huang said Chen, as a national leader and a victim of the shooting, is more eager to find out who masterminded the shooting than everybody else.
More than three months' on, and Taiwan's investigation of the incident has made little progress.
Last week, the island's top investigation agency, the Criminal Investigation Bureau, released its first ballistics report on the shooting.
The bureau said the report basically matched with evidence gathered at the crime scene.
The result of three trial shootings showed the lead bullets punching a jacket, a shirt, and an underwear on a model stuffed with pig skin. But all the three bullets were stopped by the underwear after they either punched a hole on the pig skin or grazed it.
But opposition lawmakers have questioned the trustworthiness of the report, with several of them demanding an independent probe into the matter.
People First Party lawmaker Chou Hsi-wei has said the bureau's simulated shooting could have been staged to clear accusations against Chen.
Chou charged that the bureau seemed to have deliberately overlook the fact that it only found bullets leaving a scratch on the pig skin used in the trial shootings, not the kind of wound on Chen's body, measuring 11 centimeters in length and one to two centimeters in depth.
The lawmaker even challenged the bureau's director Hou Yu-ih to an open debate during which the two sides can round up forensics experts to sort out several suspicious points in the probe.
Commenting on the ongoing investigation, the Presidential Office's Huang said Chen has been persistently and consistently pursuing truth.
But Chen has also said the revelation of truth should not happen at the cost of the constitutional and the judicial systems, Huang said.
The existing investigation agency also deserves due respect for their professionalism, not infringement of their power nor intervention from third parties, Huang said.
"This has always been President Chen's stance, which will never change," Huang added.
While the government has not decided whether or not to form such an independent investigation organ, Chen is absolutely sincere in solving the issue, Huang said.
Yesterday's press conference came after the United Daily News reported that Chen has made up his mind to set up an independent committee to take charge of the investigation.
According to the report, Vice President Lu has served as the driving force for the committee's creation.
The committee may appoint Control Yuan President Fredrick Chien as a member, the paper added.
The government may set up the committee before Aug. 16 to preempt the opposition's attempt to push legislation through a special legislative session to form its own investigation body.
Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou said he agrees in principle with the government's effort to form an independent committee.
But Ma said the committee should be formed within the existing government establishment, not on top of it.
He said the purpose of forming such a committee is to complement the existing investigations, not to override them.
The People First Party, nonetheless, said the government has responded too slowly to the call to establish the committee.
"This is a long overdue response," said Hsu Yuan-kuo, the PFP's deputy legislative convener.
"Assaination attempt" in mid-March...no investigation in July.
And perish the thought of using ballistic gelatin for standardized results. No, no...lets use pig-skin. Has a more...'politician quality' to it I'm sure.
ping
This is an assassin's dream come true. Don't have to kill the victim. Victim has no interest in pursuing the assassin. Still got paid.:)
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