Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) did not receive a fair trial and could be seen as a de facto political prisoner, a fact-finding mission sent by a Taiwanese-American organization concluded in its preliminary findings after a two-week investigation in Taiwan.
The way Chen, who is serving an 18-and-a-half-year sentence for corruption and is currently in hospital receiving medical treatment for various ailments, has been treated in prison and the way his trial was handled have not been seen even in some dictatorships, the two-member mission told the Taipei Times in an interview.
Michael Richardson and Mary Loan traveled to Taiwan to conduct a “truth-seeking” inquiry on behalf of the Formosan Association for Human Rights (FAHR). They left on Friday.
During their two-week visit, they met with Chen in his hospital room and conducted interviews with pan-green camp legislators, Chen’s attorneys, Chen’s medical team and human rights activists, Richardson said.
Richardson said a formal report will not be ready for several weeks, but that preliminary findings clearly establish three ways in which Chen did not receive a fair trial.
First, there are various structural problems with Taiwan’s justice system because having “no jury trials, politically appointed judges and the ability of prosecutors to appeal not-guilty verdicts all serve to create opportunity for judicial abuse.”
Second, a number of unusual and irregular procedural events cast serious doubt on the fairness of the former president’s trial, including the changing of judges, midnight court sessions, an after-hours skit by prosecutors mocking Chen, reportedly improper communication between the court and the prosecution and restrictions on public attendance, Richardson said.
“Third, there were classic indicators of an unfair trial: Perjured testimony, a prosecution deal and recanted testimony,” he said.
Richardson did not speak to any government officials because he thought “the government was represented by what it has done.”
While President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has reiterated that he would keep his hands off the judicial system, Richardson said his investigation clearly implicated that the trial had been politically influenced and would be deemed “unfair by any standards in the US.”
Richardson, who is from Boston, Massachusetts, and currently lives in the Central American country of Belize, said Chen’s health and his hospital environment, which “was more like a hospital cell and kept Chen largely in isolation,” were also a concern.
Recalling his first meeting with Chen in April 2010, when the former president was an inmate at the Taipei Detention Center, Richardson said Chen “was animated, very upbeat and smiled a lot.”
However, “[Chen] was a different man than [the one] I met two years ago. He was a broken man,” Richardson said, adding that Chen never smiled and made no eye contact during their one-hour meeting at Taipei Veterans General Hospital.
Neither Chen’s environment at the hospital nor the treatment he received in prison were acceptable, Richardson said.
Chen’s hospital room was “not an environment in which somebody who suffers from severe depression can heal,” he said.
In prison, “perhaps the only thing they haven’t done to him is waterboarding,” Richardson added, citing what he learned from interviews with various sources.
“If all the prisoners in Taiwan are being treated the way he’s been treated, there’s a big problem with Taiwan’s prison system,” he said.
Richardson said he had briefed officials at the American Institute in Taiwan about his findings and would submit his report to the FAHR after returning to the US.
Richardson began studying Taiwan’s history and political development six years ago. His previous field of expertise was electoral law and how people in overseas US territories, such as Puerto Rico, Guam and Samoa, obtain US citizenship.
The Sports Administration yesterday demanded an apology from the national table tennis association for barring 17-year-old Yeh Yi-tian (葉伊恬) from competing in the upcoming World Table Tennis (WTT) United States Smash tournament in Las Vegas this July. The sports agency said in a statement that the Chinese Taipei Table Tennis Association (CTTTA) must explain to the public why it withdrew Yeh from the WTT tournament in Las Vegas. The sports agency said it contacted the association to express its disapproval of the decision-making process after receiving a complaint from Yeh’s coach, Chuang
Taipei has once again made it to the top 100 in Oxford Economics’ Global Cities Index 2025 report, moving up five places from last year to 60. The annual index, which was published last month, evaluated 1,000 of the most populated metropolises based on five indices — economics, human capital, quality of life, environment and governance. New York maintained its top spot this year, placing first in the economics index thanks to the strength of its vibrant financial industry and economic stability. Taipei ranked 263rd in economics, 44th in human capital, 15th in quality of life, 284th for environment and 75th in governance,
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) tendered his resignation last night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by media. His resignation was immediately accepted by the Control Yuan. In a statement explaining why he had resigned, Lee apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon on May 20. The issue first came to light late last month, when TVBS News reported that Lee had instructed his driver to take the dog to the salon. The news channel broadcast photos that it said were taken by an unnamed whistle-blower, which purportedly showed the