Liu's attorney challenges lawsuit

Liu Tai-ying (劉泰-^), chairman of the KMT's Business Management Committee, yesterday attempted to refute charges in a lawsuit which claims he slandered his high school classmate, Li Ao (李敖), the New Party's presidential candidate.

Liu allegedly told reporters that Li "has been very good at spending money and has often wooed women at random since he was young."

The comment was published in the United Evening News on Sept. 5.

Liu's attorney, Stacey Lee (李貴敏), argued yesterday at a hearing at Taipei District Court that the slander allegation is not valid because Liu did not intend for the comment to reach the public.

Lee said that Liu made the comment during a private chat with reporters which was off the record.

"This is the kind of subject that we often talk about for entertainment," Lee said. "There definitely wasn't any intention to defame Li or to make the public lower their opinion of him."

Lee argued that when someone is said to like "wooing women and spending money," the comment does not lower his social status since it implies that this person has "considerable ability."

Furthermore, Lee said, the comment did not go beyond the existing social image that Li enjoys, because Li had admitted that he liked wooing women anyway.

For example, Lee said, during an interview with the China Times published on April 24, 1997, Li revealed that he always "wooed beautiful women whom he saw on the street."

Lee also said that as a presidential candidate, Li's attitude toward money and his personal conduct are subject to public criticism.

Neither Liu nor Li attended the hearing yesterday.

Li, when contacted by the Taipei Times, said the facts cited by Liu's lawyer are insufficient to invalidate the case because Lee is using "the present to infer the past."

Li said that since Liu's comment referred to how he acted during his senior high school years, it is inappropriate to use facts from a different period of his life to try to prove the comment's accuracy.

"How could a senior high student woo women and spend money at random?" Li asked.

If Liu had not intended for the comment to reach the public, he should have issued a statement after it appeared in the newspaper, Li said.

Li said Liu had intended to reach a settlement with him and had sent a letter of apology, but there has not been any public apology.

Asked if he would drop the lawsuit against Liu if he made a public apology, Li said he would not do so "so easily."

A second hearing on the case is set for Dec. 8.