Former NSB chief fingers Lee, Chen

Former National Security Bureau (NSB) director Ting Yu-chou (丁渝洲) released a book yesterday implicating President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) in the scandal over a secret fund at the bureau.

The book charged that the NSB had a secret fund of about NT$3 billion and that Lee knew about it.

The People First Party (PFP) legislative caucus attacked Lee and Chen yesterday over their alleged involvement in the scandal.

According to the book, Lee first had the money deposited in a bank account to generate interest which he could use to fund secret activities.

When Lee finished his term, he decided to withdraw the money from the bank and then gave it back to the next president to decide whether to continue with the bank-deposit scheme, Ting says in the book.

The book said that Chen knew about the fund and ordered the money deposited in the bank to continue generating interest.

`Against the law'

"But according to the Budget Law (預算法), the government's public funds are not allowed to be deposited in banks to generate interest to avoid embezzlement. Both presidents knew about this, yet they still acted against the law," said Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀), director of the PFP's Center for Policy Research.

"Since Chen decided to generate interest from that fund again, where has all the interest gone?" Chang asked.

He also challenged Chen to explain the fund during tomorrow's presidential debate.

PFP Legislator Chou Hsi-wei said, "Chen knows everything about the NSB fund, so why does he not have the authorities press charges against Lee? Why are the authorities only calling Lee as a witness in the case?

"We would like to know where the money the NSB gave to the Taiwan Research Institute went, and where the secret fund that secured Taiwan's diplomatic relationship with South Africa went," Chou said.

Denial

Ting also denied in the book that he was the intelligence chief who Chen said had advised him to allow the private use of the secret fund.

"I was shocked to learn from the last book written by President Chen that I was implicated as the intelligence chief who made the suggestion to Chen about how to use the secret fund," Ting says in the book.

"I have never given such advice to President Chen. Such advice would have been not only unscrupulous, but also illegal," he says.

In his book Believe in Taiwan, Chen explained his understanding of the secret fund, which totalled NT$3 billion when he was elected president in 2000.

Chen says in the book: "Many people were curious about whether I had used any money from the secret fund. Opposition lawmakers questioned if I had used the money for visits abroad."

"Former governments had indeed taken money from the secret fund, but I did not," Chen said.

"A chief of the national security system had advised me that the fund could be used for personal use. Fortunately, I knew better than that."

The fund, exposed in 2000 after a colonel with the NSB who was responsible for keeping the account ran away with NT$192 million in interest, has been returned to the national treasury under Chen's orders.

The colonel, Liu Kuan-chun (劉冠軍), is still at large after his disappearance three years ago. Liu is believed to be hiding in China.

In his book, Chen blames the NSB for allowing Liu to run away.

"The Liu case later became the cause of a conflict between Ting and his predecessor, the late Ying Chung-wen (殷宗文)," Chen says.