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Supreme Court acquits
Chen in funds case
PAST PRECEDENT: The Taipei District Court and
the Taiwan High Court had ruled that Chen used the secret diplomatic fund in the
same way his predecessors had
Staff Writer, with CNA
The Supreme Court yesterday turned down an appeal by prosecutors against the
acquittal of former president Chen Shui-bian (³¯¤ô«ó) on charges of stealing
US$330,000 from secret diplomatic funds -during his time in office.
The Supreme Court decision followed rulings by both the Taipei District Court
and the Taiwan High Court that Chen had used the secret diplomatic fund in
accordance with past precedent.
The lower courts also said in their ¡§not guilty¡¨ verdicts that the prosecution
had failed to prove that money from the diplomatic fund was included in the
amounts Chen and his family had wired to an overseas account to pay for his
son¡¦s education in the US.
Chen had been accused of skimming US$30,000 from the lump sum of US$100,000 in
secret diplomatic funds that was provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for
each of Chen¡¦s 11 trips abroad between August 2000 and September 2006.
Prosecutors charged that Chen had used the funds to help finance his son¡¦s
education in the US.
The former president is currently serving a combined jail term of 17-and-a-half
years in Taipei Prison in Kueishan, Taoyuan County, for taking bribes.
He was sentenced to 11 years in prison by the Supreme Court in November last
year for accepting bribes in a land deal when he was in office and to another
eight years on bribery charges in a second case.
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