TAIPEI: The Special Investigation Division (SID) of the Supreme Prosecutor's Office has received banking documents from Switzerland that confirm some of the prosecutors' findings in a case of alleged money laundering by former Taiwan leader Chen Shui-bian's family.

Chen Yun-nan, chief of the SID, confirmed Sunday that his office received the relevant documents last month from Swiss federal prosecutors regarding details of bank accounts that were opened in Switzerland by former "president" Chen Shui-bian's son and daughter-in-law.

"The documents generally confirm our own findings," the investigator said. They would help to verify the facts in the money laundering case, investigators with the division added.

Earlier in the day, the local Chinese-language daily China Times reported that the Swiss federal prosecutors' office had sent details of the bank accounts held by Chen Chih-chung and his wife Huang Jui-ching to the special investigation division.

The amount in the Swiss accounts totaled some $21 million, the newspaper report stated.

"The documents will be made available to the High Court as important evidence in the upcoming court hearings," according to the paper.

The SID received a report from the Swiss federal prosecutors in August 2008 that indicated that the amount in Chen Chih-chung and Huang Jui-ching's bank accounts in Switzerland stood at $21 million.

In September that year, under a judicial assistance program, the SID wrote to the Swiss federal prosecutors' office asking for further details of the bank accounts.

However, the Swiss prosecutors did not comply with the request until last month, according to SID investigators.

The SID also wrote to the Swiss judicial authorities late last year seeking information on another sum of NT$570 million ($17.8 million) that is believed to have been stashed in other Swiss accounts in the name of Chen Chih-chung and Huang Jui-ching.

That letter has not been acknowledged, the investigators said.

However, in February this year Chen and Huang produced over 100 pages of documents related to the sum of NT$570 million, a move that has assisted the SID in its probe, the investigators said.

Former "president" Chen Shui-bian was indicted last December on money laundering, corruption and forgery charges involving nearly half a billion Taiwan dollars. He was the first former leader in Taiwan's history to be put on trial for criminal offenses.

Prosecutors are not seeking a specific sentence for the former leader, but instead have asked the court to impose the "harshest penalty" on him.

They have also asked for the harshest penalty in cases involving Chen Shui-bian's wife Wu Shu-jen, his son Chen Chih-chung and his daughter-in-law Huang Jui-ching.

Some 10 other individuals have been indicted in the cases of alleged corruption and money laundering by Chen's family.

In May this year, the former leader was issued a second indictment on charges of graft, and in September a third indictment was brought against him on charges of embezzling $300,000 from a "secret diplomacy" fund.

China Daily/CNA

(HK Edition 11/24/2009 page2)