|
TAIPEI: The most controversial trial in Taiwan’s history reaches
its long awaited conclusion on Friday when a court in Taipei
announces its verdict in the graft case against former President
Chen Shui-bian.
It is a legal drama that has sharply divided the
island’s population of 23 million, with some seeing justice
prevailing but others suspecting a politically motivated plot to
lock 58-year-old Chen up for good.
“The problem with the case is that it is
heavily politicized,” said Phil Deans, a Taiwan expert at Temple
University’s Tokyo campus.
“Taiwan’s court system can’t win and
Taiwan can’t win from this trial as one side or another will be
unhappy about the verdict even if it were a perfect judgment.”
Chen, who left office last year after serving
eight years, has been accused of embezzlement, money laundering,
accepting bribes, influence peddling and forgery.
The self-styled “son of Taiwan,” who
frequently angered China with his pro-independence rhetoric during
his two terms in power, is the island’s first former leader to be
indicted, detained and tried.
Legal experts say he could face life
imprisonment if convicted on all counts at Taipei District Court.
“Former President Chen expects the worst. He
thinks the whole process is flawed and biased. It will be a
political verdict, a revenge,” his former lawyer Cheng Wen-lung
told Agence France-Presse.
Cheng visited the former president on Wednesday
in the detention center outside Taipei where he has been held since
late December.
Adding to the drama, the far-reaching case has
also implicated members of Chen’s family, including his
wheelchair-bound wife Wu Shu-chen, who was sentenced last week to a
year in jail for instigating perjury.
Wu, along with the couple’s two adult
children—both recently sentenced to six months in jail on related
perjury charges—are also expected in the court Friday for verdicts
on other counts.
Some legal experts have expressed concern about
the handling of the case, including the court’s decision to detain
Chen before his trial and to switch the presiding judge.
In a letter to the Taiwan government earlier
this year, nearly 30 international scholars warned “the erosion of
the judicial system” could jeopardize Chen’s right to a fair
trial.
“Taiwan’s judicial system must be not only
above suspicion but even above the appearance of suspicion, of
partiality and political bias,” the letter said.
Hundreds of Chen’s supporters have vowed to
voice their anger outside the court if the verdicts strike them as
unfair.
Lingering just below the surface is a
fundamental disagreement about the island’s future, and whether it
should tie its fate to giant China or seek to chart its own course.
Taiwan has been governed separately from China
since 1949, and Chen spent his presidency pushing for more formal
independence, earning him the applause of some groups while sowing
the seeds of hatred among others.
The combative Chen has insisted on his innocence
and accused his Beijing-friendly successor Ma Ying-jeou of leading a
witch-hunt against him—a charge Ma has rejected.
“Many people told me to speed up [Chen’s
case] but I can’t get involved . . . If I took the lead, the
country would be very chaotic now,” Ma told the United Evening
News, a Taipei-based paper, in July.
Chen, who says he is being punished for
advocating Taiwan independence, has gone on hunger strike three
times and dismissed his lawyers to protest his detention and trial.
“I am a victim of political struggles,” he
told the Apple Daily newspaper in an interview published Thursday.
“I expect to get the heaviest sentence, which
is life imprisonment.”
-- AFP
|
