Out of the blue we get this:
Recall that in June the Taipei District Court found Chen not guilty of embezzling diplomatic funds which led to a reduced sentence.
Er, so what is left? A few minor bribe convictions, forging documents?
Oh my god, the one man cancer on Taiwanese society may soon be back among us. 
They were not going to keep him in there forever. They just want sufficient amount of the moneys returned and he will be set free. He couldve negotiated a âtaxâ on this money in the first place and gotten out long ago. The govt knows its members are all on the take somehow. CSB probably wouldnt give it up and tried to keep all of the money. All those charges, et al. All for govt face and get some money back.
Hey if u kill someone in the USA , you may be out in a few years, but if you owe the US govt money and they know you have it somewhere, good luck getting out unless you PAY .
p.s. the US govt has expressed concern about CSB getting a life sentence and also being held in solitary basically without charge in the early days. Im sure the KMT run govt wouldve told them about letting him go soon as he forks over some cash. And Uncle Sam wouldve nodded knowingly. The US govt keeps a wary eye on its ROC child.
Govts can be like the Mafia. They can strong arm its members to toe the line, especially its key players.
Interesting angle tommy. 
I know nothing about. the specifics of the case, but judging from 5000 glorious years of Chinese history, the question for 99% of government officials great or small is not whether they took money but how much. As long as the corruption is kept within acceptable limits, no one, regardless of party or affiliation, says a word. So I would bet this is merely a matter of scale and face.
poor fucker, now heâs had to return all that money he wasnât guilty of taking in the first place.
what next: Ma pays back the Mayorâs office for ten years of dodgy receipts?
Hu confesses to forging crime statistics and wins a landslide re-lection in Taichung?
then we could ALL go home.
Yes, thatâs probably true when the issue is money. But here I think the real issue is power. The KMT has a long history of using the law to punish its opponents. It seems clear to me that Chen stole money from his political supporters and stashed it overseas and abused some of the perks of office (the state affairs fund) whose use was murky in the first place, but the idea that there was something unusually corrupt about Chen and his administration is clearly false. Ma and his supporters hit on a great narrative to get elected and have been abusing the politicized prosecutorial system to punish its opponents and teach a clear lesson in what happens if you lose an election to the KMT.
They are not going to release him before the elections, are they?
Surely you mean 5000 years of âChinese glonous history and cultualâ? 
It will be interesting to see if he is released at this point. Holding him in detention for minor bribery charges and forgery would be transparently unfair. Normally only violent criminals are detained in Taiwan. The prosecutors argued that the enormity of Chenâs crimes against society warranted detention. Even with that enormity now reduced, I suspect prosecutors will demand he stay locked up because they still believe he is guilty of bigger things and that further trials will overturn the most recent results.
Maybe releasing him would be a good way to rile up blue voters just before an election that they donât seem very excited about?
It will be interesting to see if he is released at this point. Holding him in detention for minor bribery charges and forgery would be transparently unfair.[/quote]Apparently not in Taiwan. The prosecution has the right to appeal, and they say they will wait for the written decision before they decide. Amazingly, the judge cannot order him released 
I bash the US a lot, but I have to say our legal system looks golden compared to this kind of shit. In the US, prosecutors basically get one shot-they have no right to appeal. Only defendants have the right to appeal. CSB has been convicted once, but if my memory serves me correctly, this is the third (or is it fourth?) judge who has said this case lacks any evidence. Even the judges who convicted him did not cite a single piece of evidence to do so, but quoted Confucius 
It was a real stain on the intellectual capacity of Taiwanâs judges. I remember even TVBS reporters poking fun at the silly power point presentations the prosecutors used to make their caseâŚthey had nadda. Before the verdict, all the stations were buzzing about how this case had no weightâŚyet he was still convicted in what any non-partisan observer saw as 110% politics.
If this sounds like I am a CSB sympathizer, let me assure you I am not. I simply find it disgusting that Taiwan has kept a legal system in place where anyone can be held in prison for years based on not one single piece of evidence. The reason the US has the system it does is to minimize exactly this sort of nonsense. Itâs one thing our country got right.
Yes, the criminal justice system seems to have no end point, with retrial after retrial, itâs a real mess!
For the KMT, this is all about keeping loadmouth CSB out of the way as long as possibleâŚas you will notice the business community is not exactly pining for him either in case he upsets the current gravy train. Things have been going better since he was in jail and but that is not a fair reason to keep him there indefinitely obviously, especially as corruption is common here and he has paid back what he stole.
The fact that the business community is happy that he is in jail as it makes their profits better is itself corrupt.
Wankers.
Wait a minute, doesnât Chen have the other convinction thatâs still running and so has many years in jail to face? I thought these were separate charges.
The way it works around here is heâll be in jail until either a) he is not a major nuisance anymore or b) the DPP spring him out when they get back some power.
He still took the money, though, that wasnât denied. The court just said it wasnât illegal to do so. They might be right, but it sure as hell is immoral. Chen is a slimy politician, make no mistake.
Also, I thought it was a mistake to EVER accuse him of having laundered money. I understood that he just stole it or was given bribes. Money laundering is a different thing altogether, and I have no idea why people ever thought this was one of his sins.
He still took the money, though, that wasnât denied. The court just said it wasnât illegal to do so. They might be right, but it sure as hell is immoral. Chen is a slimy politician, make no mistakeâŚ[/quote]
He still took the money, though, that wasnât denied. The court just said it wasnât illegal to do so. They might be right, but it sure as hell is immoral. [color=#0000FF]President MA is a slimy politician, make no mistake[/color].
The same can be said of many of Taiwanâs politicians.
Yes, Satellite TV hit the nail on the head, justice system for all or none, you canât pick and choose and thatâs why I have a problem with his continuing detention.
The words justice system are not really right, it should be called âunjust systemâ.
He still took the money, though, that wasnât denied. The court just said it wasnât illegal to do so. They might be right, but it sure as hell is immoral. Chen is a slimy politician, make no mistake.
Also, I thought it was a mistake to EVER accuse him of having laundered money. I understood that he just stole it or was given bribes. Money laundering is a different thing altogether, and I have no idea why people ever thought this was one of his sins.[/quote]
Because if youâve stolen money or gotten it through other illegal means (such as bribery) and then try to move it out of the country through various people to obscure its ownership and source then this is laundering. Not quite sure if youâve thought your point through.
As for Chen, I also think he is slimy but he was not gaming the system but playing right along with it. Itâs why some of us saw through this trial from the beginning. It was never about justice or rooting out corruption or showing that no one is above the law, but getting one man behind bars.
Anyway,I am heartened somewhat that the legal system seems capable of correcting itself.
Oh he has other convictions which seem more airtight. But the two main charges, embezzling state funds and this case involving hundreds of millions of NT, were the ones that were deemed so heinous that he had to get life. After the second trial cleared him of embezzlement his sentence was reduced to 20 years. He still has been convicted of a number of bribery charges, and forgery, and so may still get 10 years. I think Maâs secretary got 7 years for forgery (while smiling Ma got nothing of course).
I think this is how it goes. Honesty it is so hard to get a clear comprehensive summary of this all.