Former Presidential Office deputy secretary-general Ma Yung-cheng (馬永成) and former director of Chen Shui-bian’s office Lin Teh-hsun (林德訓) yesterday denied any wrongdoing related to the presidential “state affairs fund,” pinning the blame on other accounting secretaries.
The Taipei District Court yesterday called Ma and Lin to a pre-trial hearing to review evidence related to the case against the former president.
Ma and Lin are accused of assisting the Chen family in embezzling NT$104.15 million (US$3.1 million) in government funds that were set aside for Chen’s discretionary use while he was in office. Prosecutors allege that more than NT$27 million was obtained using “inappropriate receipts” to claim reimbursements from the fund.
Defense attorney Richard Lee (李勝琛) cited Article 95 of the Accounting Act (會計法), which states: “Internal audit implemented by each authority shall be executed by an accounting officer.”
Lee said because his clients were not accounting officers, they did not know anything about the auditing process.
Lawyers said the expense reports, which form part of the evidence in the case, were lacking many dates, so it was unclear when the reports were drawn up or signed. While the reports bore Lin’s seal, there was no way to verify whether Lin stamped the reports and therefore the documents should be inadmissible as evidence.
“This clears Lin of any auditing responsibility,” Lee said.
Prosecutors responded by saying that nowhere in the Code of Criminal Procedure (刑事訴訟法) does it support the notion that the expense reports should be dismissed or prohibited, but rather the reports were direct evidence of forgery, so they should be admissible.
Presiding Judge Tsai Shou-shun (蔡守訓) said the court would evaluate the arguments before arriving at a decision.
Lee sought to blame Chen Chen-hui (陳鎮慧), the former president’s bookkeeper, and 10 other accounting personnel.
He asked the court to call Chen Chen-hui, former director-general of the Presidential Office’s accounting department Fon Shui-lin (馮瑞麟), former vice premier Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭), accountants Chiu Chiung-hsien (邱瓊賢), Lan Mei-ling (蘭梅玲) and Liang En-tzu (梁恩賜), among others, to court for testimony.
Prosecutors opposed the move and questioned whether Lee’s motive for calling the witnesses together was to gather testimonies that would benefit the defendants. No decision was made on the request.
Tsai scheduled the next hearing for the morning of March 17. Chen Shui-bian’s trial will start on the afternoon of the same day.
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