Taipei, March 10 (CNA) Former Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) leader Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), who is currently detained on corruption charges, was allowed to leave prison Monday to attend the funeral of his father in Hsinchu.
Ko, 65, departed the Taipei Detention Center at 7:10 a.m. in the company of eight Agency of Corrections officials and was taken by van to the Hsinchu City Mortuary, where a private memorial service was held at 9 a.m.
During the service, Ko delivered a eulogy in which he apologized to his father for not being with him when he died, calling it a “regret of a lifetime.”
He asked his father not to worry for him, saying his current [legal] issues would pass and that he would “again see the light of day.”
At around 10:15 a.m., Ko emerged from the memorial service and boarded the van back to Taipei, while his wife Chen Pei-chi (陳佩琪) shouted that “politics is influencing the courts; the courts are harming human rights.”
The founder and former leader of Taiwan’s third-biggest political party, Ko has been held in incommunicado criminal detention since early January following his indictment in December for bribery, embezzlement and breach of public trust offenses dating back to his second term as mayor of Taipei from 2018 to 2022 and around the 2024 presidential election.
Ko’s father, Ko Cheng-fa (柯承發), died aged 92 on Feb. 17. Ko’s father had been critically ill and was hospitalized at National Taiwan University Hospital’s Hsinchu branch in the weeks prior to his passing.
Following his father’s death, a Taipei court ruled on Feb. 27 that Ko would be allowed contact with family members until March 10 on compassionate grounds.
On March 7, the Taipei Detention Center said it had also approved a request allowing Ko to attend his father’s funeral.
A TPP official told CNA Monday that the party had received funeral flower baskets on Ko’s behalf from figures across Taiwan’s political spectrum, including Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT, and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative caucus convener Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘).
Floral arrangements were also sent by members of the public and multiple city mayors and county magistrates, as well as former President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the DPP, said Lee Kuo-chang (李國璋), head of the TPP’s Hsinchu branch.
