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Hsieh blasts Ma for filing suit

Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Frank Hsieh tries his hand at wood carving at the Cipaukan Community of the Amis tribe in Hualien City yesterday. PHOTO: CNA

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) decision to sue prosecutors involved in the investigation into his usage of a special mayoral allowance was designed to stop them from further probing the matter, his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) counterpart said yesterday.

Ma, acquitted late last month in his "special allowance fund" corruption case, on Thursday filed a lawsuit against three prosecutors -- Hou Kuan-jen (侯寬仁), Shen Ming-lun (沈明倫) and Chou Shih-yu (周士榆) -- in the Special Investigation Task Force of the Supreme Prosecutors Office, accusing them of forgery and abuse of power.

DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said it was clear that Ma hoped to use a legal technicality to prevent the three prosecutors from being involved in future investigations into Ma's other cases in accordance with the Criminal Procedural Law (刑事訴訟法).

"What Ma did suggests that he knew the prosecutors held some [unfavorable] clues, which is why he hastened to sue them," Hsieh said.

"We respect Ma's decision to sue the prosecutors ... but the judicial system is an independent institution that should never be tampered with or challenged by any politician."

Chen Chin-jun, Cabinet secretary-general

Hsieh said that Ma should say and do things that increase the public's confidence in the judicial system, rather than resorting to rhetoric and conduct that encourage the public to sue prosecutors.

At a separate setting yesterday, Cabinet Secretary-General Chen Chin-jun (陳景峻) also voiced his disapproval over Ma's move, saying Ma was using politics to interfere with the judiciary.

"We respect Ma's decision to sue the prosecutors ... but the judicial system is an independent institution that should never be tampered with or challenged by any politician," he said.

Ma's lawyers on Thursday accused Hou of forgery, saying that as one of the leading prosecutors in the case, he wrongly transcribed the testimony given by Wu Li-ju (吳麗洳), a Taipei City Government treasurer.

Ma's lawyers also accused all three prosecutors of abusing their power by not indicting Chen Yu-hsin (陳雨鑫), a former director of the Kaohsiung City Government, even though Chen was found to have used fake receipts to claim reimbursements from the "special allowance fund" of then-Kaohsiung mayor Frank Hsieh, who served from 1998-2005.

Upon filing the lawsuit, one of Ma's lawyers, C.V. Chen (陳長文), said the lawsuit was aimed at "punishing and educating" prosecutors who abuse their power as contained in Article 125 of the Criminal Code (刑法).

The KMT caucus also threw its support behind Ma yesterday.

KMT caucus whip Kuo Su-chun (郭素春) said Ma had behaved with integrity throughout his life but was indicted simply because the prosecutors had an ax to grind and abused their power by "selectively deciding their targets for indictment."

Kuo said that the lawsuit had nothing to do with Ma's campaign for the presidency but was aimed at "winning back justice" for Ma and every individual who, he said, had been victims of an unjust judicial system.

The KMT does not rule out submitting a draft bill when the new legislative session begins on how the legislature can counteract the power of the Special Investigation Task Force of the Supreme Prosecutors Office when members of the task force are found to have overstepped their authority, she said.

Ma was indicted last February on charges of embezzling NT$11.17 million from a special allowance fund designated for his discretionary use while he served as Taipei mayor from 1998 to 2006. The funds in question are disbursed to cover the mayor's job-related expenses.

While the court has acquitted Ma in the first and second trials on the grounds that he merely followed past practice and had no intent to embezzle, the special investigation team is still probing other corruption allegations against him.

Among them are cases involving the three-in-one sale of the Broadcasting Corporation of China (中國廣播公司), China Television Co (中視) and the Central Motion Picture Corp (中影公司) to China Times Group subsidiary Jungli Investment Co (榮麗投資公司) in 2005 for NT$9.3 billion (US$286.7 million), and the party's sale of the Institute of Policy Research and Development building to Yuan Lih Construction Corp for NT$4.3 billion last year.

Both deals took place when Ma was party chairman.

Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan and staff writer
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