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Lee to testify in a closed court

In order to avoid a repeat of the uproar caused by former president Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) appearance in court on Wednesday, there won't be another public session for Lee over the Zanadau case, the Taipei District Court said yesterday.

"Future court hearings for the Zanadau case may concern national security. That is the main reason we have made such a decision," said Huang Jiunn-ming (黃俊明), the spokesman of the Taipei District Court.

Huang said that next hearing for Lee would be sometime around Feb. 1 but the exact time and location will be decided by judges. He said it would be a closed-door hearing.

According to Huang, to clarify the complicated bank transactions between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), Lee and former China Development Holding Corp chairman Liu Tai-ying (劉泰英), judges will have to hold more than one hearing to decide their involvement in the Zanadau scandal, which had been a KMT investment project.

Since the transactions may concern political donations to the KMT and the government's secret diplomatic accounts, which should remain classified, it would be necessary to make the hearings closed-door sessions, he said.

"In addition, yesterday's hearing was quite an experience for us," Huang said.

"It took extra manpower to maintain public order and security for the former president. We have to figure out a better way to handle a similar situation in the future," he told reporters.

Huang's statement referred to the crush of people inside and outside the court on Wednesday.

For Lee's hearing, the Taipei District Court asked the Taipei City Police Department and the National Police Administration's First Peace Preservation Corps to deploy 248 police officers.

In addition, the court only allowed 38 reporters and 60 members of the public to attend the proceedings.

The stricter security measures were criticized by the media because there were many more reporters who wanted to attend the hearing.

Controversy also arose after a court guard discovered a reporter from a Chinese-language newspaper was recording Lee and Liu's testimony with a digital voice recorder. Presiding Judge Lin Chuan-cheng (林銓正) asked the reporter to erase the recordings.

Inside the court room, Lee complained about prosecutors' aggressive attitude when they were questioning him.

"They thought I knew nothing and tried to lead me to the answers they wanted," Lee told reporters after he left the courtroom.

Prosecutor Yueh Fang-ju (越芳如), however, denied that her colleagues had tried to "lead Lee to the answers which prosecutors were expecting."
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