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Prosecutors bar Chen Shui-bian traveling abroad

Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has been prohibited from leaving the country after he was found to have large cash deposits abroad, the Supreme Prosecutors Office (SPO) said on Saturday night.

Prosecutor Chu Chao-liang (朱朝亮) said the overseas travel ban was issued after extensive discussion by the SPO’s Special Investigation Task Force.

“The main reason is that Chen has US$21 million deposited in overseas bank accounts belonging to his family members,” Chu said.

Chu and two colleagues searched Chen’s home and office and questioned Chen and his wife Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) on Saturday on whether there were any links between the “state affairs fund” case and money-laundering allegations.

Chu’s team said they learned that Chen had four undisclosed bank accounts used for political donations for the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections — three for 2000 and one for 2004.

The accounts were opened in Chen’s name, but Wu handled all transfers, the prosecutors said in a statement.

The sum of transfers to and from the accounts totaled several hundreds of millions of NT dollars, they said, and many deposits were as much as NT$10 million. During the 2004 presidential campaign, one of the accounts received a NT$50 million deposit. Prosecutors said they were tracking the source.

Investigations of all of the former president’s accounts for his legislative, mayoral and presidential campaigns found that Wu had transferred money to her own bank account and the accounts of her husband, son, daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law and brother Wu Ching-mao (吳景茂). Prosecutors said all would be summoned for questioning.

Prosecutor Chou Wen-hsiang (周文祥) of the Tainan District Prosecutors Office raided Wu Ching-mao’s home in Tainan County’s Matou Township (麻豆) on Saturday and seized documents and data, including a computer.

Wu Ching-mao was not at home on Saturday, but Chu’s team said it would summon him today.

Wu Ching-mao has also been prohibited from leaving the country.

Meanwhile, Wu Li-hua (吳麗華), the mother of Chen’s daughter-in-law Huang Jui-ching (黃睿靚), was seen yesterday at Newark International Airport in New Jersey with Chen Chih-chung’s newborn baby girl Chen Chieh-hsin (陳潔歆).

Wu was about to fly back to Taiwan with her granddaughter when she was spotted by reporters.

She told reporters that she knew nothing about Huang’s overseas bank account.

She said Chen’s son Chen Chih-chung (陳致中) would return to Taiwan this week after registering at the University of Virginia and confirmed that Chen Chih-chung was in Virginia at the moment.

Chen Chih-chung is planning to study law.

The former president admitted on Thursday that he lied about his campaign funds for his two mayoral elections and two presidential elections between 1993 and 2004 and that his wife had wired surplus campaign contributions overseas.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY LEE HSIN-FEN

Also See: ANALYSIS:Scandal is an opportunity: analysts
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