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Ma used secret
passage to save face: Lee Teng-hui
By Lee Hsin-fang, Lin Chun-hung and Jason Pan / Staff reporters,
with staff writer
Former president Lee Teng-hui
smiles as he leaves a private gathering at the Gloria Prince Hotel in Taipei on
Friday evening.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) felt
“embarrassed” so he took a secret underground passage when he was subpoenaed by
prosecutors on Wednesday as a witness in an investigation into an alleged leak
of secrets on the part of Prosecutor-General Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘), former
president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) said.
Lee made the remarks on Friday evening in response to media inquiries as to why
Ma took the underground passage instead of entering the Taipei District
Prosecutors’ Office by its front door when he arrived to be questioned by the
prosecutors.
The Taipei Prosecutors’ Office opened the investigation after receiving
complaints that Huang violated the law when he briefed Ma in late August on
information gathered through wiretapping.
The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office’s Special Investigation Division (SID), which
reported to Huang, said wiretapped conversations indicated that Legislative
Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) lobbied the then-justice minister and a senior High
Court prosecutor in late June to prevent an appeal against Democratic
Progressive Party caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘), who had been acquitted in a
breach of trust case.
“Ma felt embarrassed, he was chagrined for fear of losing face,” Lee said.
The former president then castigated Ma for allegedly using Huang to persecute
Wang through wiretapping.
“No other leader in the world would dare do such a thing, because the speaker of
the legislature represents the electorate,” Lee added.
“Developments in the case should be handled by the judiciary. As the president,
Ma should keep quiet, but instead he went on the radio and talked about the case
in an interview. I think Ma has been dim-witted on this matter,” Lee said.
The underground passageway that Ma used on Wednesday night was built during the
Japanese colonial era and connects the Presidential Office Building to the
nearby cluster of government bureaus located in the high-security Po-Ai Special
District (博愛特區).
The secret passageway was mentioned in 2009 by former president Chen Shui-bian
(陳水扁) when he was detained and questioned on corruption charges at the Taiwan
High Court in October 2009.
Chen at the time divulged that there are two secret, underground escape routes
in the Presidential Office Building.
“It is no use to me, I cannot go anywhere now… It will be used by Ma Ying-jeou
when he needs to make his escape,” Chen said at the time.
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