Taiwan ex-president's family gets more prison for graft cover-up

Aug 18, 2011, 7:38 GMT

Taipei - Taiwan's Supreme Court confirmed a longer prison term for the wife of former president Chen Shui-bian for covering up misuse of state funds, a news report said Thursday.

The ex-leader is already serving 17 and a half years for a string of graft and money-laundering crimes totaling about 20 million US dollars during his 2000-2008 rule. His wife was also given 17 and a half years for the same crimes.

Wu received a nine-month extension to her sentence, while their son, daughter and son-in-law received sentences of three months each, a court spokesman said in a telephone interview.

A Taiwan district court had sentenced her to an extra year in 2009. Earlier this year the high court cut the term to nine months, and the Supreme Court upheld that decision on Wednesday, spokesman Chang Chun-tsung said.

'She told her son, daughter and son-in-law to lie,' spokesman Chang Chun-tsung said of the former first lady. 'They were told to buy stuff and say it was for the president's guests, but it was really for private use.'

Wu's overall sentence may be shortened, as she has been wheelchair-bound since a 1985 accident, the spokesman said. She is not yet in prison.

The case is not closed. 'It's half over and half still being adjudicated,' Chang said. 'That can always mean the sentences get stiffer.'

The former president, who ruled with his Democratic Progressive Party, has said the charges are a political plot against him by the now-ruling Nationalist Party.

Chen's support for formal independence drew sharp rebukes from Beijing, which has considered Taiwan a breakaway province since the end of the civil war in 1949. The Nationalists, in power since 2008, have sought peaceful ties with China.

Another former president, the Nationalists' Lee Teng-hui, was indicted in June on charges of embezzling state funds during his 1988-2000 term.