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Ma sues special allowance prosecutors

"I will establish an impartial judicial system if elected."

Ma Ying-jeou, KMT presidential candidate

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday filed a lawsuit against Supreme Court Prosecutors' Office Special Investigation Panel member Hou Kuan-jen (侯寬仁) and two other prosecutors involved in the investigation into Ma's usage of his special allowance during his eight-year tenure as Taipei mayor.

Hou said he was surprised to learn that Ma, a former minister of justice, had filed a suit against him and his colleagues Shen Ming-lun (沈明倫) and Chou Shih-yu (周士榆) for forging witnesses' statements during the investigation.

Hou said he had considered filing a slander suit against Ma during the trial as Ma and his staff had repeatedly attacked him, damaging his reputation, possibly in an attempt to influence the judges as they were considering the verdict.

"I almost filed a suit at the time, but decided not to," Hou said.

Hou said he was willing to accept Ma's challenge and respected Ma's right to file the suit.

Ma's camp later released a statement, which accused Hou of violating Article 213 of the Criminal Code by fabricating the official document of witness Wu Li-ru's (吳麗洳) testimony.

They also charged Hou and the other two prosecutors with violation of Article 125 of the Criminal Code (刑法), saying that the three had "abused their authority" by failing to indict Chen Yu-hsin (陳雨鑫), a former director of Kaohsiung City Government, even though Chen was found to have used fake receipts for reimbursements for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) special allowance during Hsieh's Kaohsiung mayoral term.

The statement said the "arbitrariness" of the prosecutors during their investigations into Ma's and Hsieh's special allowance funds had "damaged the credibility of the entire prosecutorial department."

Ma filed the suits against the prosecutors to "punish" those prosecutors who "abused their authority" and to "teach" them that they should not "selectively" indict defendants, the statement said.

The statement also said Ma hoped prosecutors understood that Article 125 of the Criminal Code, which had never been cited in seven decades, was part of the law.

Asked to comment on his decision to sue Hou, Ma yesterday said the judges in both the first trial and the second trail had agreed that the record of the transcription was different from the content on the tape.

"The injustice I have suffered could have happened to anyone. I will establish an impartial judicial system if elected," Ma said yesterday in Matsu (馬祖).

In response to news of the lawsuit, the DPP legislative caucus said that the public would get a chance to find out what kind of man Ma really is.

"Who is telling the truth and who is telling lies? I don't think it will be difficult to find out," said Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘), DPP legislative caucus convener.

DPP caucus whip Wang Tuoh (王拓) questioned whether Ma was trying to intimidate the judiciary by filing the suits.

"I wonder if Ma will sue more prosecutors if any others indict him for something else in the future," Wang said.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY MO YAN-CHIH AND STAFF WRITER
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