Former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) office yesterday dismissed a report that Chen had asked for a new prison cell and demanded that the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) and Taipei Detention Center explain the matter.
Chen was detained in a cell without windows from last November until May, when the center moved him to a cell with windows, the office said in a statement.
“The former president has never asked the detention center for a new cell ... We protest that the ministry is using untrue information to mislead certain media outlets and tarnish Chen’s name,” the statement said.
The remarks came after the Chinese-language China Times Weekly published a report yesterday saying that Chen blamed his life sentence on the bad feng shui of his cell and that he had asked the detention center to move him to a new one.
The Taipei District Court sentenced Chen and his wife to life in prison on Sept. 11 after handing down a guilty verdict in the graft trial against the former first couple and 11 co-defendants.
The verdict makes Chen the first former president in the country’s history to be indicted and convicted.
The magazine said the source of the story came from within the ministry.
Chen’s office demanded the ministry clarify the matter and urged the magazine to print a retraction.
Formosa News Magazine, a pro-independence publication, called for a boycott of the weekly.
Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) refused to comment on the report, saying the Taipei Detention Center would handle the matter.
Wang said that she was not aware of the issue until learning about it from media reports.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SHIH HSIU-CHUAN
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