Chen Shui-bian held for two more months in jail

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-03-04 09:26

BEIJING -- A Taipei court has rejected here Tuesday former Taiwan leader Chen Shui-bian's appeal against his detention and ordered that he be held in custody for a further two months, starting on March 26.

According to the island's law, a defendant whose maximum, basic, potential sentence is below ten years should not be held for more than three months during trial. If necessary, courts can prolong the detention for no more than two months every time. The detaining period can be prolonged for at most three times.

However, Chen Shui-bian was accused of many corruption charges and his most severe basic sentence could be life, which made the court consider prolonging his detention more than three times.

Chen was first detained on December 30, 2008.

According to the resolution made Tuesday by the Taipei court, the charges against Chen were very severe, and he had repeatedly disturbed the judicial procedure to protect himself and delay the litigation.

"Under the current circumstances, it will be very hard to hold more trials if Chen Shui-bian is not detained," the court said in the resolution.

It added that since Chen was likely to destroy or change evidence and collude with witnesses, it wouldn't be effective enough to confine his living compared to detention. "Thus Chen's appeal for repealing the detention was rejected," it said.

Chen and his wife are accused of taking bribes worth 100 million New Taiwan dollars (29 million US dollars) and 6 million US dollars in a corporate land procurement, and the couple are also allegedly involved in deceivingly pocketing over 104 million New Taiwan dollars of special funds. Chen and his collaborators are also accused of laundering the illegal income.