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Prosecutors defend their integrity in indictments

"By reading the documents about two cases, it's easy to tell that Hou judged the Ma and Hsieh cases using different standards."

Lo Chih-chiang, Ma Ying-jeou spokesman

Three prosecutors in charge of the investigation into the special allowance case involving Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweights yesterday defended the results of their inquest, saying bias or political motivation had played no part in their probe.

The Supreme Prosecutors' Office on Friday night indicted Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), DPP Chairman Yu Shyi-kun and National Security Council Secretary-General Mark Chen (陳唐山) on suspicion of misusing their special allowance funds.

The trio was alleged to have used fraudulent receipts to claim reimbursements from their special allowance funds.

For their part, DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and vice presidential candidate Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) were cleared of any wrongdoing.

Prosecutor Hou Kuan-jen (侯寬仁) of the Supreme Prosecutors Office's Special Investigation Panel told reporters yesterday that while Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) aide Yu Wen (余文) had been indicted for using fraudulent receipts to claim reimbursements from Ma's special allowance fund.

Hsieh and Su's secretaries, for their part, had attached every receipt to the appropriate documents and detailed how the money was spent, Hou said.

Hou said that prosecutors had scrutinized the receipts and that they did not find anything that would raise questions.

Prosecutor Shen Ming-lun (沈明倫) said that during their tenure as Kaohsiung mayor and Taipei County commissioner, Hsieh and Su had both deposited the part of their special allowance funds that did not require accounting oversight into their bank accounts.

Although prosecutors were unable to trace every expenditure, they determined that the value of their spending had exceeded the special allowance funds they had received.

During Hsieh's tenure as premier and Su's as secretary-general of the presidential office and premier, both claimed their allowance funds in cash.

As a result, prosecutors were unable to establish how the money was spent.

Hsieh and Su's property value did not increase during their time in office, Sheng said.

Hou said that Ma was indicted because he had wired half his monthly special allowance directly into personal accounts and that the remainder of those allowances had been found in his and his wife's accounts.

Ma spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) criticized Hou yesterday for applying "double standards" while handling the Ma and Hsieh investigations.

Although Ma's indictment spent a lot of time detailing his spending, in Hsieh's case the fact that the total sum of his spending was more than his income was enough for Hsieh to avoid being indicted, Lo said.

"By reading the documents about the two cases, it's easy to tell that Hou judged the Ma and Hsieh cases using different standards," he said.

Prosecutor Chou Shih-yu (周士榆), however, said the evidence spoke for itself.

Additional reporting Mo Yan-chih
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