However, in Incarcerated Taiwan, Yuan wrote he visited Chenin prison at the urging of the Dali Lama and suddenly realized he was in error in accepting the prosecution version of the case: “I focused all my attention to read the soul behind his eyes. From Chen's eyes, I saw a deep sorrow but also a truthful and strong will. From that moment, I believe in his innocence because his eyes convey nothing but truthfulness. I started to contemplate why this prisoner in front me would rather be oppressed by all political powers, including CCP*, KMT**, and even the US, than sell out the interest of Taiwan. In no way a person this loyal to the fundamental value of Taiwan would betray his responsibility as a president by embezzling money.”

In his office at Kainan University, Yuan said as he began researching Chen’s case he received a batch of secret documents from sources in China: “I can’t reveal my sources but a large number of classified documents were leaked out. I obtained detailed documentation of the plan to destroy Chen Shui-bian by the Chinese Communist Party. I believe that the "corruption" charge against Chen Shui-bian is probably the worst political persecution in 21st century.”

According to Yuan, Hu Jintao outlined the plan to destroy Chen Shui-bian in a secret meeting of the politburo shortly before Chen left office in 2008. Hu Jintao is quoted providing details of the plot against Chen: “Ministry of National Security was able to discover hard evidence of corruption in the Chen Shui-bian family….The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also attained evidence. After much effort they were able to convince the US government to help us in persuading the Swiss Bank and the Singaporean government to strategically disclose the Chen family corruption and hand the evidence over to the Taiwan judicial authorities.”

Hu Jintao continued: “According to our understanding, Chen Shui-bian will be arrested very soon. His arrest will be a huge blow to the Taiwan's Independence forces. It will also strengthen the KMT’s influence in Taiwan.”

Yuan quotes Hu Jintao boasting about secret cooperation with the United States against Chen Shui-bian: “During this time of cooperation, the US also mentioned that international relation conditions are in favor for us to quickly and peacefully settle the Taiwan problem. The US definitely sees “Taiwan's Independence” as a trouble point.”

Under the San Francisco Peace Treaty that ended World War II with Japan, the status of Formosa, now called Taiwan, was left unresolved with the United States as the “principle occupying power.” The Republic of China in-exile is a caretaker government pending resolution of Taiwan’s status.

Yuan wrote in his new book Incarcerated Taiwan about Chen Shui-bian, “This person imprisoned in that torturous cell symbolizes the destiny of Taiwan's freedom.”

“From the legal end, Chen Shui-bian never received a just trial. The theory of democracy in Taiwan has never been fully implemented,” explained Yuan.

“Under the Kuomintang, Chen has not been judged fairly. Although Chen Shui-bian was the president, the whole legal system personnel still belonged to Chiang Kai shek’s regime, under the so-called party-state system,” said Yuan.

Yuan said, “I left China and went to Australia for asylum. When I was at Peking University I had many friends with high-ranking positions with the government leadership. Many high-ranking Chinese Communist Party members, persecuted by the leading power, would give me many secret documents. I had easy access to documents.”

Yuan closed the interview with a message to Americans: “America’s strategy has been made on a wrongful decision. The USSR is no longer the rival target. Now it is international terrorism.
No matter how many terrorists there are they won’t do much harm to America, but China remains a danger.”

“Obama and Hu Jintao tried to ally America with China. The American people and the news media say that America is the leader of the free world but they don’t account for the danger. They don’t realize China is a political tragedy embarrassed by competition,” said Yuan.

Who is behind the jailing and torture of President Chen? The answer is Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to Yuan HongBing, a Chinese political dissident born in inner Mongolian. Yuan is currently teaching in a college in Taiwan. He claimed on YAM TV on May 18th, after reading the recent leaked documents from China, that CCP started an well-organized plan to bring down President Chen since he was elected in 2000.

Yuan admitted that he was wrong in his harsh criticism of the "corruption" of Chen and his family in his book, Taiwan Disaster (台灣大劫難：2012不戰而勝台灣) published in 2009. He asserts now that the "corruption" charges were completely orchestrated by CCP. All these will be discussed in his upcoming new book*.

Yuan claimed that CCP was behind the Assassination of Chen on March 19 in 2004 too. The assassin Chen I-Hsiang later was killed by CCP as a cover-up. CCP bribed many retired military generals of KMT and got Lien Chan, the chairman of KMT at the time and the defeated presidential candidate, to start an all out war against Chen, joining forces of media, military, judicial system, politicians, etc. The typical cases were the attempted coup by the red-shirt guard, organized by Shih Ming-Deh and all the bogus charges against President Chen and his family. Yuan acknowledged the will of President Chen to maintain his political stance in protecting Taiwan's sovereignty and dignity despite these all out attacks and his current jailing and torture. What is the fastest way to get President Chen out of jail? It would be that President Chen gives up his political belief and succumbs to Chinese imperialism. Yuan stated that President Chen would not only be released but be promoted to a high position in CCP.

Chen Yao-hsiang, a National Taipei University professor, said the same judge, Tsai Shou-hsun, heard Chen’s state affairs fund case and President Ma Ying-Jeou’s special allowance case, which were essentially similar, but handled the trials differently and handed down drastically different rulings.

“The trial against Chen was like a trial against a war criminal, rather than a citizen,” said Professor Chen.

Other scholars asserted that “illegal and absurd practices” during Chen’s prosecution included pre-trial detention, extended detention for unconvincing reasons, prosecutors demanding that a witness provide false testimony and forcing Chen’s three-year-old granddaughter to submit as a witness.

Speaking for the book launch one of Chen Shui-bian’s lawyers, Cheng Wen-lung, also known as Jerry Cheng, said that the judicial system is the only institution that has not yet been democratized, as evidenced by the judicial malpractice in Chen’s trials.

On the issue of Chen’s medical parole, Aletheia University law professor Wu Chin-ching was critical of the Ministry of Justice which has been sitting on the issue and said the Ministry was ignoring human rights. Professor Wu said it is not an issue only for the former president, because records show that about 600 of the 900 prisoners who were granted medical parole in the past never made it back to prison.

“They all died. They were already very ill and very close to death prior to their parole,” Professor Wu said, adding that Chen Shui-bian’s case demonstrated the necessity of prison reform.

President Discretionary Fund Embezzlement Case: First Retrial verdict is Not Quity
The first “Abian case”, which was charged against me after the 2008 presidential election, started out with an indictment in Nov. 2006 by Taiwan High Prosecutors Office (THPO) regarding the use of presidential discretionary fund for national affairs. However, Ma, when he was Taipei Mayor, was also indicted by THPO for his embezzlement of his mayor discretionary fund. The presidential discretionary fund for national affairs is the earliest discretionary fund for government high officials. The difference between the two cases is that when Mayor Ma was indicted, the whole KMT stood firmly behind him and nominated him as the presidential candidate for their party, while DPP chose to distant themselves from me by adopting a “sever-the-ties” tactic. Now, it has become clear that, historically, the use of both discretionary funds were governed by loosely defined rules(1).

In both cases, there was false bookkeeping with bogus receipts. Ma Yin-Jeou deposited the mayor discretionary fund into his private bank account. Each month, he wired NT$200,000 to his wife Chou Mei-Ching. He wired NT$3,000,000 to his sister Ma I-Nan. He paid for his daughters’ credit card charges with his discretionary fund. Tsai Sho-Shiun (the presiding judge) and his joint court acquitted Ma in the name of “mixed use of the fund” and “the Big Dam Theory” (2). However, the same joint court sentenced me to life in prison even though I provided proof for legitimate fund uses to conduct classified diplomatic missions, whose expenses totaled NT$130,000,000, an amount far exceeding the total amount of the presidential discretionary fund. On August 26, 2011, I was cleared for all the embezzlement charges by the first retrial ordered by the High Court.

Note(1): The congress, which is controlled by KMT, passed a new law to “forgive” all the misuses of discretionary funds by all high officials (mostly past KMT high officials), except President Chen and Vice President Lu. The law denotes the misuse as a “historically common practice”. Vice President Lu is now cleared for this charge against her. She asked Control Yuan to investigate Special Prosecutors Panel for abusing its prosecution power.

Note(2): “The Big Dam Theory” was invented by a pro-KMT attorney, Chen C-V, Managing Partner & Chief Counselor of Lee & Li Attorneys at Law to defend Ma. After Ma was found to deposit half of the discretionary fund to his wife’s personal bank account each month for every year when he was the major. He then "denoted" the money he embezzled to two foundations run by his wife. “Judge” Tsai accepted his after-being-caught donation as a legitimate expense and adopted this “Big Dam Theory” to acquit Ma, claiming that as long as the total amount of legitimate expenses exceeds the total of the discretionary fund, it was legal. However, this Big Dam Theory was not applied to President Chen’s case by the very same judge even though there was no evidence that any money from the presidential discretionary fund was wired into the private bank account of President Chen.

Note (3): The High Court invalided the Not Quilty verdict of the first retrial. It is current in 2nd retrial in 2012.

I was acquitted for the charges of embezzling Diplomatic Mission Miscellaneous Fund. This acquittal is final.
This embezzlement charge was pressed against me by the Special Prosecutors Panel (SPP) without merits, building on speculative and falsified evidences.

Note: The Supreme Court acquitted President Chen of any wrong doing in the US$330,000 Diplomatic Mission Miscellaneous Fund case, supporting the decisions by the Taipei District Court and the Taiwan High Court on April 29, 2011. This is a final verdict.

All other “Abian Cases”, except the one related to the presidential discretion fund, are all related to “campaign funds” and “political contributions”. The difference is that the political contributions accepted by KMT are considered as legitimate for compaign, while all my campaign funds, either raised for two of my presidential elections or for candidates nominated by DPP for local elections, are all considered as corruption and bribery money, in exchange for equal valued political and policy favors from me. The Supreme Court Decision #627 clearly defined the powers of the President and the Premier of Executive Yuan under the current ROC Constitution. The Premier of Executive Yuan is in charge of executive functions of the government, while the President is in charge of those specific functions defined by the Constitution and its Amendments. Consequently, the executive powers overseeing, for example, the development of research parks, personnel decision of private enterprises, and mergers of financial institutes are not parts of the presidential powers. In both the Long-Tiang case (1) and the Chen Min-Shin case(2), the judge reached guilt verdicts because the judge asserted that presidential powers were exercised in the decision makings of these two cases. This assertion is clearly unconstitutional and the guilt verdicts are therefore invalid.

Note(1): The Long-Tiang case is related to the development of a research park.

Note(2): The Chen Min-Shin case is related to the appointment of Chen Min-Shin as the head of Taipei 101 tower.

As for the case of “Second Financial Reform” (1) , I was acquitted in the first trial because the judge decided that my presidential powers were not directly involved in the decision making of the above “Financial Reform” and there were no promises of favors in exchange for political contributions from two banks involved. In fact, the political contributions from these two banks, Cathay Financial Holdings and Yuanta Financial Holdings (1), were parts of campaign contributions raised and used for election campaigns over the years. Among them, NT$100 million was used for the 2004 presidential election, while NT$1.3 billion was used for various elections, including county and city mayors elections in 2001, legislators election in 2002, 2005, and 2008, Taipei and Kaohsiung city mayors and city councilors elections in 2002 and 2006 for DPP candidates, as well as pledges to sponsor the candidates of an allied party, Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), in 2001 and 2004 (NT$60 million). Specifically, the campaign funds I contributed to several Taipei and Kaohsiung mayors elections were as high as NT$60 million, 50 million, 35 million, and 20 million, respectively. However, these campaign funds I raised were all denounced as corruption and bribery “dirty money” by the prosecution. Some DPP and TSU candidates viewed the same campaign funds that I contributed to them as their fair share and attempted to sever the ties with me to distinguish themselves as “clean” politicians.

Note(1): There were bank mergers involved in “Second Financial Reform” .

I am not connected to the Nan-Kong Case.
I had nothing to do with the Nan-Kong Exhibition Hall case, even though it was counted as one of the “Abian cases”. I was neither indicted nor sentenced for this case. The court found Yu Chan-Shen and Wu Shu-Jen guilty of attempting to profit from others, but the case is currently under appeal by them.

The funds I stashed overseas were intended for diplomatic missions after my presidency.
Among the so called “Oversea NT$700 million”, the court decided that only less than NT$300 million was involved with money laundering, including NT$70 million which was related to Tsai Ming-Tse and his sister. The rest of the fund was found to be legal. When Control Yuan investigated James Soong for his role in the Shin-Piau Money Laundering case, Control Yuan affirmed that unspent campaign funds legally became personal property of the candidate after the election. Because of this legal affirmation, James Soong was not found guilty of money laundering even though he wired NT$380 million to the US using the identities of thirty to forty people. James Soong, the former Governor of Taiwan, reported to the election board that he only raised NT$100 million campaign fund. In fact, his unspent campaign fund alone exceeded NT$620 million. Soong claimed that he was unaware of it because it was his wife who managed the campaign fund. My wife, Wu Shu-Jen, wired unspent campaign funds to oversea banks with an intention to use them for diplomatic missions for Taiwan and for public affairs. In fact, a sum of US$1.9 million was given to Mr. Wu Li-Pei, a former member of National Affairs Council, for classified diplomatic missions. The Special Prosecution Panel indicted Mr. Wu Li-Pei for participating in money laundering but he was acquitted of any wrong doings.

Taipei District Prosecutors found Ma and Kim (1) interfered with the judicial independence. The fact that even prosecutors acknowledged the judicial interference by Ma and Kim, it becomes clear why only six days after I was acquitted for the charges of the “Second Financial Reform Case”, the Taiwan High Court unilaterally (2) reached two guilty verdicts for the “Long-Tiang Case” and the “Chen Min-Shin Case” and sent me to jail immediately without giving me rights to appeal.

Note(1): Kim was the head of KMT at the time. He is a close friend of Ma.

Note(2): The Taiwan High Court reached the guilt verdicts for these two cases in a unprecedented manner. Usually, the High Court returns the case back to a lower court for retrial if it does not agree with the verdict of the lower court.

Koo and Du testified that they were threatened and coerced to testify against me.
In 2008, in the beginning of the prosecution of the “Abian Cases”, the prosecutors of the Special Prosecution Panel called a news conference and boldly pledged that they would resign if they could not bring a conviction of me. Following this news conference, the Justice Minister, Wang Ching-Feng, briefed the case to the secretariat of KMT, Wu Dun-I. Soon after, the prosecutors started an all-out investigation and placed witnesses under custody to build their cases against me. The Premier of Executive Yuan, Liu Chao-Shien, even predicted, in response to legislators’ questioning, that I would be soon placed under custody. It is evident that prosecutors harassed and coerced witnesses to testify against me. For example, Du Li-Ting admitted, during a court hearing, that her attempted suicide was a result of harassment and threats by the prosecution. Jeffrey Koo Jr., his lawyer and CFO of his company testified in a High Court hearing of the “Red Fire Case” that the Special Prosecution Panel asked Koo to testify against me. Koo’s lawyers confirmed that Koo did not remit NT$300 million bribe money to me as alleged by SPP.(1)

Lee Tsei-Mu (2) was threatened by the prosecutors to testify against me or he would be severely punished to an extent that he would lose all of his assets.
After the Special Prosecution Panel brought the charges against me, Judge Chou Chan-Tsun twice released me without bail, but Judge Chou was replaced by Tsai Sho-Shiun and the joint court assembled by Tsai through an executive order. This is a direct violation of the principle of “Legally Assigned Judge” (3). Tsai Sho-Shiun, who acquitted Ma of the Mayor Discretion Fund case, intentionally ignored the evidences in favor of me and even hid an important piece of evidence related to classified documents of “Fong-Ten Project”. Tsai locked this piece of evidence away in a safe to keep it out of the court hearing. Despite all witnesses testified that I owned substantial unspent campaign funds and political contributions, Tsai Sho-Shium simply proclaimed that “There were none!” and sentenced me to life in prison, fulfilling his guilty prejudgment.

Note(1): Koo’s lawyers admitted Koo’s false testimony in May 2011.

Note(2): Lee Tsei-Mu was convicted of accepting bribery money for the development project of the Long-Tiang Research Park. There are video recordings of his questioning and interviewing by the prosecutors in which the prosecutors clearly threatened him to provide damaging testimonies.

Note(3): Article #16 of Taiwan Constitution provides constitutional litigation right to people. This Article emphasizes that in order to protect the constitutional litigation right, the selection process to assign a presiding judge must follow an impartial and open drawing procedure. This is the core value of the principle of legally assigned judge. It is unconstitutional to remove the legally assigned judge through an executive order. Taipei District Court removed the legally assigned judge Chou Chan-Tsun and installed Judge Tsai Sho-Shuin by an executive order based on the decision of a meeting among chief justices subject to external influences without abiding by the rule of law.