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Prosecutors opt to appeal Ma verdict

The Taiwan High Court Prosecutors' Office yesterday decided to appeal the "not guilty" verdict in Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) corruption case to the Supreme Court.

Ma was accused of misappropriating NT$11 million (US$333,000) from his special allowance fund during his eight-year tenure as Taipei mayor. He was found not guilty of corruption on Dec. 28 by the Taiwan High Court.

Prosecutors allege that Ma diverted half of his monthly special allowance -- NT$170,000 -- to personal bank accounts between December 1998 and July 2006.

In this way, they said, Ma accumulated NT$11,176,227 in accounts belonging to himself and his wife.

However, the Taiwan High Court ruled that the half of government officials' monthly special allowance not requiring accounting oversight can be cashed out or wired to personal accounts and that accounting officials have no right to ask how this money is spent.

As a result, the court ruled that Ma's use of the allowance was legitimate.

During his trial, Ma admitted that he had spent half of his monthly special allowance on personal items, but said he believed that government officials' special allowances should be treated as a subsidy, not as public funds.

Taiwan High Court Prosecutors' Office spokesman Chen Hung-ta (陳宏達) said yesterday that the rationale behind the ruling in Ma's trial did not make sense.

He said that although it had been generally accepted since 1973 that government officials only had to account for half of their special allowance spending, not all officials sought reimbursement for funds that had been spent on personal items.

"The view that half the monthly special allowance of government officials should be regarded as income is groundless, so the High Court Prosecutors' Office decided to take the case to the Supreme Court," Chen said.

Chen said that because the investigation into officials' usage of special allowances was controversial, a ruling from the highest court in the land would be beneficial.

Ma's attorney, Song Yao-ming (宋耀明), reminded reporters yesterday that the Taipei District Court and the Taiwan High Court had both acquitted Ma. He said the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors' Office had no basis for appealing the case to the Supreme Court, but was continuing to persecute Ma. Song said the prosecutors' decision was politically motivated.

Ma said yesterday that he respected the prosecutors' decision to exercise their right to appeal the Taiwan High Court's ruling.

Additional reporting by Mo Yan-chih
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