Jailed Taiwanese ex-leader hospitalised

Jailed former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian was resting in a hospital Monday after being admitted with an irregular heartbeat during a hunger strike protesting his arrest in a corruption case, a doctor said.

After visiting Chen in the hospital, his lawyer said the former leader rejected new pleas by family members to end his fast, although doctors warned him of the possibility of kidney failure and other severe illness.

Chen, 57, who insists his arrest was politically motivated, was given glucose and saline injections to stabilise his condition but was still suffering from a slow metabolism, said Tsai Kuang-chao, a doctor at Far East Memorial Hospital, where Chen was first taken Sunday. He has since been moved to another hospital in suburban Taipei.

The former president started his hunger strike after judges ordered him arrested last Wednesday while prosecutors investigate graft allegations against him.

A prison doctor detected an irregular heartbeat on Sunday and recommended Chen’s hospitalisation, prison officials said. Chen also complained of difficulty in breathing and pain on the left side of his chest, they said.

Chen’s lawyer, Cheng Wen-lung, said the former president agreed Monday to let him appeal to the court for a revocation of the detention order.

Chen had earlier said he would not appeal his detention to highlight what he said was a politically motivated arrest, and rejected repeated pleas from prison authorities to eat.

In August, Chen admitted he broke the law by not fully disclosing campaign donations he had received, after a Nationalist lawmaker alleged that Chen’s son and daughter-in-law moved $21 million (Dh77m) to Switzerland in 2007. Prosecutors believe Chen may have amassed millions of dollars more.

At the time, prosecutors said they wanted to determine whether the funds were donations left over from political campaigns, as Chen insisted, or whether bribery may have been involved.

Prosecutors say they have enough evidence to hold him as they prepare a formal indictment and have denied allegations by Chen’s supporters of government interference in the case.

Chen, an ardent supporter of Taiwan’s formal independence from rival China, has denied any wrongdoing and said he is being persecuted by his successor, President Ma Ying-jeou.

The corruption probe began soon after Chen finished his eight years in office in May, forcing him to withdraw from his Democratic Progressive Party in disgrace. His arrest has further deepened political divisions in Taiwan.

DPP lawmakers say Chen’s arrest without an indictment underscores a lack of respect for human rights by Taiwan’s judiciary and raises questions about judicial independence. But ruling Nationalist lawmakers say it was a necessary move to help crack a complex corruption case by preventing Chen from communicating with alleged co-conspirators.

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