Former Taiwan People's Party Chairman Ko Wen-je was accused of being involved in the Jinghua City plot ratio bribery, seeking benefits, embezzlement of public interest, and breach of trust cases. On Thursday, the Taipei District Court delivered its verdict and found Ko Wen-je guilty of accepting bribes, sentencing him to 17 years in prison and depriving him of civil rights for 6 years. In response, Ko Wen-je’s mother, Ho Jui-ying, choked back tears and said the verdict was unfair to Ko Wen-je, adding that no other party in Taiwan has been targeted by the judiciary like Ko Wen-je. She directly accused the Democratic Progressive Party authorities of political persecution.
The Taipei District Court on Thursday sentenced Ko Wen-je to 13 years for the crime of accepting bribes in violation of official duties, 2 years and 3 years and 6 months respectively for two counts of embezzlement of public interest, and 2 years and 6 months for breach of trust, with a combined total term of 17 years in prison and deprivation of civil rights for 6 years. The case is still open to appeal.
Ho Jui-ying pointed out that she was injured from a fall and had just been discharged from the hospital on Wednesday evening. She believes the verdict is certainly unfair to Ko Wen-je, and questioned whether anyone in the DPP or other parties has ever been treated like Ko Wen-je. She lamented that many outside remarks were truly excessive and stated that she is already 90 years old and no longer has the strength.
She mentioned that Ko Wen-je's bail is as high as NT$70 million (about RM8.77 million), and that the Ko family are not businesspeople, so she finds this to be very difficult for them.
Ko Wen-je’s sister, Ko Mei-lan, stated that she is currently seeing patients and has no time to respond to relevant matters. She only briefly expressed her stance with the words, “I don’t believe it,” and then ended the call without further answering media questions.