Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/01/26
By: Wu Jhe-hao, Liao Jen-kai and Y.F. Low
Taipei, Jan. 26 (CNA) The Taiwan High Court held its first hearing Tuesday on a
Wei Ying-chung is escorted as protesters chanted anti-Ting Hsin slogans outside the courtroom.
food safety scandal involving Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團), following an appeal by prosecutors against a not-guilty verdict issued by a lower court late last year.
In a ruling handed down Nov. 27, 2015, the Changhua District Court acquitted former Ting Hsin Oil and Fat Industrial Co. Chairman Wei Ying-chung (魏應充) and six other defendants of charges related to violations of the country’s food safety laws, sparking widespread outrage.
Wei was indicted in October 2014 for allegedly violating the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation after investigators found that his company had imported animal feed-grade fat while declaring it as fit for human consumption. It was then used to make cooking oil, prosecutors said.
But in its ruling, the court said the prosecution had failed to prove that the raw materials imported by Ting Hsin from the Vietnamese trading company Dai Hanh Phuc Co., (大幸福) were unsuitable for human consumption. [FULL STORY]
