After the Hsinchu Municipal Baseball Stadium was reopened in 2022, controversies such as player injuries, project quality, and backfill waste broke out one after another. After nearly four years of investigation, the Hsinchu District Prosecutor's Office concluded the investigation in August this year and determined that former Hsinchu Mayor Lin Zhijian was not guilty enough of being accused of profiteering and other crimes, so he did not prosecute. The case was later sent to the High Prosecutor's Office for further discussion. The High People's Procuratorate now recognizes that there is no reason to reconsider the case and rejects the reconsideration. Lin Zhijian's sanction of non-prosecution has been confirmed.
The whole case stems from the Hsinchu Baseball Stadium reconstruction project. In July 2022, a professional baseball game was held before the acceptance was completed. In just two days, many players were injured. Among them, Fubon outfielder Lin Zhexuan suffered a ruptured left shoulder joint labrum when he caught a fly ball. Subsequent games were suspended, which also caused the outside world to question the quality of the construction. The Hsinchu District Prosecutor's Office received a report in the same year and investigated whether the project involved crimes such as profiteering, forgery of documents, the Government Procurement Act, and the Waste Cleanup Act.
After Gao Hong'an took over as the mayor of Hsinchu, the city government excavated the stadium and found concrete blocks, red bricks, waste wires, plastics, etc., which aroused the "big secret treasure" controversy over whether to illegally backfill construction waste. The project budget also increased from the original 350 million yuan to more than 1.15 billion yuan. Prosecutors therefore investigated whether the contract changes were used to profit specific manufacturers.
The inspection found that the increase in the project budget was mainly due to the addition of 11 projects such as the underground parking lot, the renovation of the Minfu three-dimensional parking lot, and the reinforcement of the outdoor structure. The amount of each contract change did not exceed 50% of the original contract amount, and the procedures did not violate the "Government Procurement Law." Through communication monitoring, searches, cash flow comparisons and account analysis, prosecutors found no illegal cash flow between Lin Zhijian or other city officials and Jujia Construction and Ai Yikang, and no evidence of bribery or benefit was found.
As for the waste dispute, the prosecutor found that the bricks, stones and other earth and stone produced by the demolition project could have been crushed and backfilled, and no operator was found to have transported the waste from outside for burial. Although the city government found stones, wood and other foreign objects during two excavations, the quantity was limited, and the non-compliant stones only accounted for about 0.75% of the demolished earth and stone.
The prosecutor's investigation concluded that although the baseball stadium project had administrative and construction flaws such as project management, confusion over the role of construction supervisors, poor procurement procedures and supervision, and opening for use without proper acceptance, it could be handled according to contract, administrative or civil procedures. It was not enough to determine that Lin Zhijian and others were involved in criminal offenses such as profiteering, so they were punished without prosecution.
However, prosecutors also found that the city government asked Jujia Construction to build new projects before the design changes were completed. In order to make the construction log comply with the progress, the construction site director surnamed Xiao and the quality control personnel surnamed Zhu posted unimplemented red soil backfilling, grass planting and other projects in advance; Ai Yikang, the construction supervision director surnamed Li, and the construction supervision engineer surnamed Shuai also published false information on the daily construction supervision report, and produced and signed 18 construction spot inspection record sheets. All four people confessed to the crime and were granted deferred prosecution. Each of them had to pay NT$40,000 to the public treasury.
After Lin Zhijian and others were not prosecuted, the case was sent to the High People's Procuratorate for reconsideration. The Supreme People's Procuratorate recognized that the original punishment was not inappropriate, so it dismissed the case for further review, and Lin Zhijian was confirmed to be given the non-prosecution decision.
