Taiwan ex-president Chen Shui-bian gets extra jail term Skip to main content

Taiwan ex-president Chen Shui-bian gets extra jail term

Former Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian waves as he arrives at the Taiwan High Court in Taipei (August 2011) Chen angered Beijing during his eight years in office by pushing for Taiwan's independence

Related Stories

Taiwan's ex-President Chen Shui-bian - who is already in jail for corruption - has been given an additional sentence for money-laundering and forgery.
The term of two years and eight months was imposed after a retrial at Taiwan's high court, in which Chen was also acquitted of another corruption charge.
He was given a life sentence in 2009.
Chen has accused Taiwan's current government of persecuting him to win favours with China; he strongly supported independence while in power.
In this latest case, Chen was initially found guilty of embezzling some $5m (£3m) from a special presidential fund while he was in power.
But the Supreme Court ordered a retrial last November, citing insufficient evidence.
Now Taiwan's High Court has acquitted Chen of the charge.
The court, however, found him guilty of money laundering and forging documents, and handed down the additional two-year sentence. That brings his overall sentence to about 20 years.
Chen's wife, former first lady Wu Shu-chen, received a longer sentence of nearly 12 years at the retrial, but she is unlikely to spend any time in prison because of her poor health, says the BBC's Cindy Sui in Taipei.
Analysts say the ruling could appease Chen's supporters and help President Ma Ying-jeou, who is seeking re-election in the upcoming January presidential race.
But it could also help the opposition party which Chen once led, by giving it more leverage to accuse the governing party of playing politics in prosecutions, says our correspondent.
Chen angered Beijing during his eight years in office by pushing for Taiwan's independence.
Taiwan has been ruled separately from China since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, when the defeated Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan to create a self-governing entity.
But Beijing sees Taiwan as part of its territory and has threatened to use force if the island ever moved to declare formal independence.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14678192
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chronology of the Press in Burma

1836 – 1846 * During this period the first English-language newspaper was launched under British-ruled Tenasserim, southern  Burma . The first ethnic Karen-language and Burmese-language newspapers also appear in this period.     March 3, 1836 —The first English-language newspaper,  The Maulmain Chronicle , appears in the city of Moulmein in British-ruled Tenasserim. The paper, first published by a British official named E.A. Blundell, continued up until the 1950s. September 1842 —Tavoy’s  Hsa-tu-gaw  (the  Morning Star ), a monthly publication in the Karen-language of  Sgaw ,  is established by the Baptist mission. It is the first ethnic language newspaper. Circulation reached about three hundred until its publication ceased in 1849. January 1843 —The Baptist mission publishes a monthly newspaper, the Christian  Dhamma  Thadinsa  (the  Religious Herald ), in Moulmein. Supposedly the first Burmese-language newspaper, it continued up until the first year of the second Angl
Post a Comment
Read more

ARSA claims ambush on Myanmar security forces

Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on Sunday claimed responsibility for an ambush on Myanmar security forces that left several wounded in northern Rakhine state, the first attack in weeks in a region gutted by violence. Rakhine was plunged into turmoil last August, when a series of ARSA raids prompted a military backlash so brutal the UN says it likely amounts to ethnic cleansing of the Muslim Rohingya minority. The army campaign sent some 650,000 Rohingya fleeing for Bangladesh, where refugees have given harrowing accounts of rape, murder and arson at the hands of security forces and vigilantes. Myanmar's military, which tightly controls information about Rakhine, denies any abuses and insists the crackdown was a proportionate response to crush the "terrorist" threat. ARSA have launched few attacks in recent months.  But the army reported that "about ten" Rohingya terrorists ambushed a car with hand-made mines and gunfire on Friday morning
Post a Comment
Read more

Thai penis whitening trend raises eyebrows

Image copyright LELUXHOSPITAL Image caption Authorities warn the procedure could be quite painful A supposed trend of penis whitening has captivated Thailand in recent days and left it asking if the country's beauty industry is taking things too far. Skin whitening is nothing new in many Asian countries, where darker skin is often associated with outdoor labour, therefore, being poorer. But even so, when a clip of a clinic's latest intriguing procedure was posted online, it quickly went viral. Thailand's health ministry has since issued a warning over the procedure. The BBC Thai service spoke to one patient who had undergone the treatment, who told them: "I wanted to feel more confident in my swimming briefs". The 30-year-old said his first session of several was two months ago, and he had since seen a definite change in the shade. 'What for?' The original Facebook post from the clinic offering the treatment, which uses lasers to break do
1 comment
Read more