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Chen transferred to penitentiary
CORRUPTION:Judicial authorities have not yet decided
whether Chen Shui-bian’s wife, Wu Shu-jen, should also serve time given her
health condition
Agencies, TAIPEI
Former president Chen Shui-bian is moved under
heavy security yesterday from the Taipei Detention Center to a nearby
penitentiary where he is to begin serving a 19-year sentence after his
conviction on wide-ranging graft charges was upheld.
Photo: CNA
Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was moved yesterday from a detention
center to a nearby penitentiary to formally begin serving his sentence after the
Supreme Court upheld his conviction on wide-ranging graft charges.
The transfer followed a decision last month by the Supreme Court to uphold
Chen’s convictions in two high-profile bribery cases involving a land deal in
Longtan (龍潭), Taoyuan County, and the appointment of a chairwoman to the company
that manages the Taipei 101 building.
The Supreme Court sentenced Chen to a total of 19 years in prison for the two
bribery charges on Nov. 11 in the first final verdict in a string of corruption
cases implicating him and his wife, Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍).
Chen is the nation’s first former president to be imprisoned for graft.
Looking relaxed and alert, Chen, 60, was taken by a police van from the Taipei
Detention Center in Tucheng (土城), Taipei County, to Taipei Prison in Taoyuan
County’s Gueishan Township (龜山), escorted by numerous police officers in patrol
cars and on motorbikes.
Reports have indicated that Chen will be allowed fewer visitors than at the
detention center and that he has to share a cell with another inmate.
Shortly before the transfer, he had an emotional meeting with his son, Chen
Chih-chung (陳致中).
Dozens of supporters gathered outside the detention center, protesting Chen
Shui-bian’s innocence.
“A-bian isn’t guilty!” the crowd chanted, affectionately referring to the former
president by his nickname.
Some also held up placards stating Taiwan is an independent country, in support
of Chen Shui-bian’s political cause.
“He was very much worried about the health of my mother,” Chen Chih-chung said
after emerging from the meeting with his father. “He also asked me to continue
to fight for the goal of ‘one country on each side’ [of the Taiwan Strait.]”
Chen Shui-bian’s wheelchair-bound wife has also been sentenced to 19 years in
jail for corruption, but it remains unclear if she will actually serve the
sentence, given her frail health. Wu has been paralyzed from the waist down
since 1985, when she was hit by a truck immediately after a hotly contested
political campaign in Tainan County.
It was also unclear when she would begin serving her time. Judicial authorities
have said that they will decide after receiving her conviction documents at
which prison in the Kaohsiung area she should be confined or whether to grant
her probation on medical grounds.
Chen Chih-chung himself is embarking on a political career after he was elected
on Saturday last week as a Kaohsiung city councilor.
Chen Shui-bian, who has been detained since late 2008, says his prosecution is a
vendetta carried out by the current administration in retaliation for his
pro-independence stance during his 2000-2008 term.
His office issued a statement yesterday blasting his conviction as “politically
motivated” and accusing the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration of
interfering in the court proceedings. The office also announced the
establishment of a panel to continue promoting Taiwan’s de jure independence and
insisting on the former president’s innocence.
American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Chairman Raymond Burghardt declined to
comment on the matter in his capacity as a US official when he was approached by
reporters after his visit with Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) at the
legislature.
But when asked to comment as a friend of the former president, Burghardt said:
“As someone who has been his friend, if that [the accusation against him] was
true, that he had done what they [the court] said he did, then I thought our
friendship has been betrayed.”
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