Convicted ex-president to be stripped of all privileges
ROC Central News Agency
2010/11/11 22:30:56
Taipei, Nov. 11 (CNA) Security services for detained former President Chen Shui-bian will soon be stopped following his final corruption convictions handed down Thursday in two high-profile cases.
Chen, who has been kept behind bars since December 2008 on graft charges, has seen his pension and office allowances suspended since Sept. 1, when the revised Former Presidents and Vice Presidents Privileges Act took effect.
The amended law stipulates that privileges should be suspended once a former top leader is convicted of corruption, insurgency or treason in the first trial and that a former leader will be denied any special privileges for the rest of his life once convicted of corruption in the final trial.
The National Security Bureau (NSB) currently has only a single security officer deployed at the Tucheng detention center in Taipei County, who serves as Chen's liaison, with another two to three officers assigned to protect his safety when he attends court hearings.
NSB officials said Thursday the bureau will discontinue all security services for Chen after it receives formal notice of Chen's corruption conviction in the final trial.
In its final ruling, the Supreme Court sentenced Chen and his wife Wu Shu-jen to 11 years in prison each for taking bribes in the Lungtan land procurement deal related to the Hsinchu Science Park Administration.
The couple also each received an eight-year prison term from the Supreme Court in another bribe-taking case involving the appointment of Diana Chen as Taipei 101 chairwoman.
The Supreme Court authorized the Taiwan High Court to decide how the sentences should be combined.
Meanwhile, the country's highest judicial body ordered the Taiwan High Court to retry the couple for their roles in two other corruption cases -- the embezzlement of special state affairs funds and taking kickbacks in the Nangang Exhibition Hall project.
Chen and his wife were found guilty by the Taipei District Court and sentenced to life in prison for embezzling some US$3.15 million in special state affairs funds, receiving bribes worth at least US$9 million, and laundering some of the money through Swiss bank accounts.
The Taiwan High Court reduced their sentences from life to 20 years in June on appeal and prospectors from the Special Investigation Division under the Supreme Prosecutors Office later appealed the high court ruling to the Supreme Court. (By Garfie Lee, Sophia Yeh and Sofia Wu) ENDITEM/J
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