Missing Kaohsiung City councilor arrested after returning to Taiwan

Kaohsiung, Sept. 29 (CNA) A Kaohsiung City councilor who boarded a flight for Xiamen, China, last week while under investigation for corruption was arrested after returning to Taiwan on Sunday, according to prosecutors.

In a press release issued Sunday evening, the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors Office said it had arrested City Councilor Huang Shao-ting (黃紹庭) after he arrived on a flight into Kaohsiung International Airport at around 2 p.m.

Huang, 54, was nowhere to be found when investigators searched his residence and office in Kaohsiung's Lingya District on Thursday morning as part of a probe into allegations that he inflated the fees of publicly funded assistants working in his constituency office.

It was later discovered that he had boarded a flight to Xiamen at 7 a.m. that day.

At the time, prosecutors said they had been informed by a source that Huang would return to Taiwan and submit to questioning as soon as a flight was available, without elaborating.

In a statement issued Friday via the main opposition Kuomintang's social media group, Huang responded that the China trip had already been on his personal agenda.

He denied knowing about the search beforehand and said he had not tried to avoid the investigation.

The councilor said he told investigators of his planned trip after learning about the search on Thursday and said he would report back when he had finished managing his affairs in China.

Regarding the publicly funded assistant fees, Huang asserted that he did everything by the book and never made any false declarations.

During Thursday's search, 17 people, including the councilor's parents and his office staff, were brought in by prosecutors for questioning. Six of them were later released after posting bail of between NT$20,000 (US$631) and NT$300,000.

A request by prosecutors to detain the assistant director of Huang's constituency office, surnamed Chou (周), was rejected by a Kaohsiung court, and as of Sunday had not been appealed.