Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators yesterday urged the Special Investigation Division to launch an investigation into allegations that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had taken copies of classified national security documents before leaving office.
At a news conference at the legislature yesterday morning, DPP Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇), citing a confidential source, said Ma had taken an unidentified number of boxes containing copies of classified national security documents when he was moving out of his office.
“Ma is the only president who had a copy machine in his office. He has said before that he always made copies of documents himself, including classified documents,” Wang said.
Calling on investigators to subject Ma to the same standards imposed on former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), Wang said that the investigation division searched both the Presidential Office and Chen’s residence after hearing that Chen had allegedly moved several boxes of classified documents out of his office.
Chen was subsequently indicted on charges of illegal possession of public property, concealment of documents possessed by a public official by reason of his office and violation of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), Wang said.
Paragraph 3, Article 18 of the act states that reproduced classified information that is no longer needed for use should be destroyed immediately.
“Should the investigation division decide to look into these allegations, I am willing to cooperate and reveal my source,” Wang said.
DPP Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said that in light of these allegations, the government should deny Ma’s application to make a one-day visit to Hong Kong on Wednesday next week and prohibit him from leaving the country.
Ma’s office issued a statement later yesterday saying DPP lawmakers should stop making fabricated and defamatory statements to mislead the public.
“Since Ma took office 2008, he had ordered that all documents be numbered and archived in accordance with the Archives Act (檔案法). He also instructed relevant agencies to hand over the archived files in their entirety to the new government before leaving office,” Ma’s office said.
Shrugging off allegations that Ma had removed several cartons of documents, his office asked: “Do you not need to pack when moving?”
The former president has always been a law-abiding citizen who is strict even with himself, Ma’s office said, accusing DPP lawmakers of launching a political vendetta against Ma with unsubstantiated and trumped-up charges.
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