President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) lawyer presented confidential documents to the Taipei District Court yesterday in an attempt to prove that People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) did indeed meet secretly with the director of China's Taiwan Affairs Office, Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), while on a trip to the US.
The president said in May during a TV interview that Soong had secretly met with Chen Yunlin during his trip to the US earlier in the year.
Soon after Soong refuted the president's accusation and demanded a public apology. Since the Presidential Office never responded to Soong's demand, the PFP then filed a defamation claim at the Taipei District Court, asking for compensation of NT$50 million (US$1.5 million).
Yesterday, the judges presiding over the trial at the Taipei District Court said, "The confidential nature of the documents Chen [Shui-bian's] lawyer offered may concern issues of national security, so we asked Soong's lawyers to read the documents while under supervision."
Soong's lawyer Lee Fu-tien (李復甸) yesterday asked the judges to summon the president to testify to the court.
Chen's lawyer Yen Chih-chien (顏志堅) told the judges that the president is willing to appear at the trial if the judges think it is necessary, but according to the Civil Procedure Code (民事訴訟法), any testimony would take place at the president residence, and not at the court.
Yen and the judges did not specify from which government agency the confidential documents had come.
The nation's top intelligence official, National Security Bureau Director-General Hsueh Shih-ming (薛石民), has already denied that his bureau has provided any information on the alleged Soong-Chen Yunlin US meeting.
PFP Legislators have said that if the evidence proves that Soong did indeed meet with Chen Yunlin, then the chairman will apologize and bow out of the political arena.
In other related news, the Taipei District Court announced yesterday morning that a verdict on the president's slander suit against UFO Radio chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) will be released on Jan. 6.
The president brought the suit against Jaw last October after he claimed the president had offered US$1 million to the former Panamanian president Mireya Moscoso as a birthday present.
Jaw yesterday told the judges that he had obtained the information from a Web site he had found using the Google Internet search engine.
Jaw told the court that his comments concerned the national interest and should be protected under the freedom of speech.
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