Ex-president acquitted of charges of stealing diplomatic funds
ROC Central News Agency
2011/04/28 18:32:40
By Lai You–chia & Bear Lee
Taipei, April 28 (CNA) The Supreme Court on Thursday turned down an appeal by prosecutors against the acquittal of former President Chen Shui-bian on charges of stealing US$330,000 from Taiwan's 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 United States.
Chen was 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 U.S.
The former president is currently serving a combined jail term of 17.5 years in Taipei Prison in Kueishan, Taoyuan County, for bribery.
He was sentenced to 11 years in prison by the Supreme Court in November 2010 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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