Taiwan ex-leader's wife gets shorter jail term for perjury

Taiwan ex-leader Chen Shui-bian's wife Wu Shu-chen was sentenced to nine months in jail by a Taiwan court Wednesday after a trial on the Chen family's perjury case.

Investigations showed that Wu Shu-chen had collected personal invoices from Chen's two children and other people to get reimbursement from public money, Taiwan's high court said in the verdict.

Wu was sentenced to one year in jail in September last year by the Taipei District Court in the first trial of her perjury case. When the high court started the second trial in November, Wu and others involved confessed their crimes at court but pleaded for shorter jail terms.

Wu was accused of having told her son, Chen Chih-chung, and daughter, Chen Hsing-yu to give false testimony.

The high court on Wednesday cut off three months from the previous six-month jail term imposed by the Taipei District Court respectively to her son, her daughter and son-in-law.

Diana Chen, former chairwoman of Taipei 101 Mall, received an eight-month jail term, down from the previous 18 months, as her statement at court "evidently" did not match investigation records, the court said.

Wu and his husband were also both sentenced to life in prison by the Taipei District Court in September last year for graft, embezzlement, money laundering and other abuses when Chen was in power from 2000 to 2008.

They were still appealing their sentences at the Taiwan's high court.

Source:Xinhua