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Ma's wife should stand trial: legislators

Democratic Progressive Party legislators Hsieh Hsin-ni, left, and Hsu Kuo-yung, center, hold a press conference yesterday to demand prosecutors list Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou's wife Chou Mei-chin as an accomplice in his corruption trial. PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers demanded yesterday that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) wife be listed as an accomplice in his corruption trial.

In February Ma was indicted for embezzlement for wiring half of his mayoral special allowance into his wife Chow Mei-ching's (周美青) personal bank account between 1998 and last year.

In the indictment, prosecutors said that while Ma's monthly salary was about NT$150,000, he had deposited NT$200,000 a month into his wife's account, which led them to suspect that he was embezzling public funds.

The prosecutors said in the indictment that they had not indicted Chou because there was no evidence she was involved.

But DPP Legislator Hsieh Hsin-ni (謝欣霓) said yesterday that Chou should assume responsibility because she had used the "unlawful income" deposited in her account.

"It was clearly stated in the indictment that Ma and Chow used the money in the account to pay their credit card bills and their daughters' tuition fees," she told the press conference.

DPP Legislator Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) said Chow might have broken the law by using misappropriated public funds and so she should be deemed a "partner in crime."

After the press conference the DPP lawmakers went to the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office and the Taipei District Court to file complaint asking the court and prosecutors to look into Chow's involvement.

Ma refused to comment on the lawmakers allegations.

He denied, however, that he was planning to "destroy" his DPP rival, Frank Hsieh (謝長廷).

"I didn't hear of the conspiracy `to destroy Hsieh' until yesterday. But I've been hearing of a conspiracy to attack me for years," Ma said.

While Ma was a man of few words yesterday, his long-time aide and former Taipei deputy mayor King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) issued a long statement threatening to sue DPP Legislator Wang Tuoh (王拓) for defamation if Wang failed to retract his accusations against him within three days.

Wang and two DPP city councilors told a press conference on Thursday that King was heading a Kaohsiung-based task force for the KMT aimed at exposing scandals involving Hsieh using information leaked by prosecutors.

"I urged Legislator Wang to correct his false remarks within three days and to admit that he made the accusations based on misleading information provided by Hsieh's campaign office," King said.

In related news, the Taipei Prosecutors' Office released a statement yesterday saying the deposition of a witness in the Ma embezzlement case by Prosecutor Hou Kuan-jen (侯寬仁) was a truthful record.

The statement was a formal rebuttal to allegations by Ma's lawyer, Song Yao-ming (宋耀明), who claimed on Thursday that Hou had altered the testimony of the witness.
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