Taiwan's Chen awaits verdict in corruption trial

A Taiwan court will decide Friday if former President Chen Shui-bian is guilty of corruption, in a trial widely seen as a key test of the island's young democracy.

Chen, 58, is accused of embezzling $3.15 million during his 2000-2008 presidency from a special presidential fund, receiving bribes worth at least $9 million in connection with a government land deal, laundering some of the money through Swiss bank accounts, and forging documents.

If convicted, he could be sentenced to life imprisonment.

Chen has pleaded not guilty and claims he is being persecuted for his anti-China views by successor Ma Ying-jeou, a strong advocate of improved ties with Beijing.

Chen's legal travails have galvanized this island of 23 million people, which held its first direct presidential election in 1996, less than a decade after it began dismantling four-decades of strict, one-party rule.

Most Taiwanese are convinced Chen is guilty of at least some of the charges against him, though some of his supporters believe his political views have played a role in his prosecution and that he has been unfairly confined to jail during his trial.

Critics point to a decision to change the three-judge Taipei District Court panel trying Chen after it originally freed him on his own recognizance following his indictment last December. The new judges accepted the prosecutors' argument that he constituted a flight risk, and that if freed, he could collude with alleged co-conspirators.

Political scientist Hsu Yung-ming of Taipei's Soochow University said there were elements of retribution in Chen's treatment.

"Chen's case will serve as a warning for Ma and future leaders so that they may refrain from walking in his footsteps," he said. "At the same time, many question whether Chen is being punished because of political clash between him and the current administration."

Chen, Taiwan's first non-Nationalist Party leader since Chiang Kai-shek fled to the island after losing the Chinese civil war to Mao Zedong's Communists in 1949, rode to power in 2000 on a promise to clean up decades of Nationalist corruption and to deepen Taiwan's de facto independence.

But he quickly fell afoul of the Nationalists' majority in the legislature and his alleged tendency to play fast and loose with accepted procedures, including his lax management of a special presidential fund, meant to promote Taiwan's overseas interests.

Complicating matters was China's outright hostility, based on Chen's pro-independence views, and his tense relations with the United States, Taiwan's most important foreign partner.

Washington saw Chen's support for independence as raising the possibility of a war with Beijing, and pressured him to desist - with only limited success.

Chen's wife Wu Shu-chen, their son and several associates are standing trial with him.

Last week Wu was convicted on perjury charges and sentenced to a year in prison. She remains free on her own recognizance.