Ex-president of Taiwan indicted on graft charges

Former President Lee Teng-hui, one of the pivotal figures in Taiwan's modern history, was indicted on graft charges yesterday, becoming the second recent leader to face such charges and prompting opposition accusations that the government was subverting the island's still-evolving democracy. Prosecutors insisted the indictment followed the law and that Lee diverted parts of a special presidential fund to use for a think tank to serve his private office after he left political life. "Lee Teng-hui pocketed $7.79 million (Dh28.6 million) for his own personal use through money-laundering," the prosecutors' office said in a statement. "In order to set up the Taiwan Research Institute, he consulted with his advisers and decided to get the money from a National Security Bureau project fund." But some members of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party charged that the indictment was an effort to intimidate them ahead of presidential and legislative elections in January direct elections that Lee, nicknamed Mr Democracy, helped to introduce when he served as Taiwan's leader between 1988 and 2000. Like Lee, the DPP opposes efforts by President Ma Ying-jeou and his Nationalist government to move Taiwan closer to China, from which it split amid civil war in 1949. Prosecutors began looking into the case after Lee stepped down in 2000, and three years later charged the National Security Bureau's chief accountant with corruption. Those charges were eventually dropped for lack of evidence. Lee spokesman Wang Yen-chun described Lee as "bewildered" by the indictment and said he "regretted the untrue accusation" against him. His attorney chided prosecutors for failing to take into account Lee's assertion that the NSB rather than Lee was in charge of disbursing the think tank's funds. From / Gulf News