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ATV owner Lim Por-yen was charged yesterday with bribery over Taiwan's biggest land rezoning scandal.

 Lim, 83, chairman of the Lai Sun Group of companies, was among 15 defendants.

 He said he was innocent and had been tricked by subordinates and a corrupt official.

 Ho Kwan-cheung, who formerly headed Lim's Crocodile textile subsidiary operations in Guangdong, was also charged, although his whereabouts remained a mystery.

 The scandal centred on Chuang Yu-kun, former director of the Taipei County Government's Land Administration Bureau, who was accused of pocketing millions of US dollars in bribes and kickbacks from owners of land re-zoned by his bureau.

 Prosecutor Hsueh Wei-ping said it was Taiwan's 'biggest scandal of its kind in recent memory'.

 Lim was accused of funnelling HK$55.68 million in bribes to Chuang through Ho.

 Ho was said to have passed the money on to Chuang's brother-in-law, who converted it into more than US$4 million and deposited it in several bank accounts opened by Chuang's wife, Lin Shu-yen, in the United States, the indictment said.

 A warrant was issued for her arrest yesterday.

 In exchange, parcels of land owned by Lim's Dollar Textile subsidiary in Sanhsia, Taipei County, were re-zoned as part of a project to build the National Taipei University campus and surrounding community, the prosecutor said.

 The land the Dollar Textile factory was sited on until it shut several years ago was acquired by the county government, which paid Lim NT$900 million (HK$211 million) compensation. The payment was far above standard market value, the indictment said.

 Interviewed by Taiwan's TVBS television network at his Taipei office yesterday, Lim blamed Ho for bribing the official.

 'That's not right,' he said of the accusations. 'I don't know the official [Mr Chuang] at all.'  But prosecutor Mr Hsueh showed the South China Morning Post's two photographs of Lim sharing a meal with Chuang.

 Mr Hsueh's indictment asked the court to hand down a life sentence to Chuang, but declined to recommend a sentence for Lim, who could get a maximum of seven years. A trial date has still to be set.

 Lim was arrested on December 16, released on bail on January 22, and has been barred from leaving Taiwan.



Tycoon Lim faces $55m bribe charges