The turnout was lower than expected at court yesterday for the opening day of first lady Wu Shu-jen's (
Four-hundred seats were set up in an auditorium on the sixth floor of the Taipei District Court for media and spectators, but only about 10 percent were occupied early in the morning.
Rain and the cold weather were assumed to have played a part in the poor attendance.
A live feed of the trial was broadcast on a screen in the auditorium, but normal court rules prohibiting cellphones, cameras, PDAs and video and sound recorders applied.
People were lined up as early as 6:30am outside the elevators on the first floor. Plain-clothed military police were interspersed among the crowd, but excitement seemed to be lower than for an autograph signing with baseball star Wang Chien-ming (
By 9:25am less than 100 seats were filled. Instead of the expected commotion, law students scribbled furiously in their notebooks and one middle-aged man wearing a red jacket dozed off.
There was a bit more excitement outside the courthouse, where police had amassed around 500 officers to maintain order.
There were scattered incidents prior to the first lady's scheduled 9:30am arrival. Police had to forcibly stop one woman imitating Wu from entering the court building at around 8am. Former independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Szu-hai (柯賜海) also made an appearance, shouting for President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to step down and Chinese Nationalist Party Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to be "locked up."
Another woman arrived with her newborn infant to say that she could feed her family with the amount that Wu had allegedly spent on jewelry.
Some red-clad anti-corruption protesters were also in attendance shouting anti-corruption slogans.
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