(China Daily)
Updated: 2007-08-15 07:12

Former Kuomintang (KMT) party chairman, Ma Ying-jeou, was found not guilty of misusing funds by a court in Taipei.

Ma was accused of misusing more than NT$11 million ($330,000) in expense funds during his tenure as mayor of Taipei.

Ma resigned as chairman of the KMT, Taiwan's leading opposition party, after being indicted on February 13, but declared that he would run in the 2008 Taiwan leadership election. The expense funds, also known as special allowance funds, are given to executive officers. Official receipts are required for half of the funds. The other half only requires the signature of the official.

"My supporters finally witnessed justice," Ma told a crowded news conference after the verdict was announced. "I will continue to fight for the values of honesty."

Ma, 57, had consistently professed his innocence, saying Taiwanese law recognized that the money was an official subsidy, and the three-judge panel in Taipei District Court agreed.

Ma "did not intend to take the money illegally, nor did he intend to take it for his own benefit," the judges said.

"Ma's clean-cut image has been resurrected," Ho Han-chun, a political science professor at Taipei University, said. "The (ruling) Democratic Progressive Party had pinned high hopes on using this case to crush Ma's popularity."

DPP "presidential" candidate Frank Hsieh is also facing legal problems of his own.

KMT supporters allege that he received kickbacks in connection with the construction of a subway in Kaohsiung when he was mayor there from 1998 to 2005.

Hsieh has denied the charges and prosecutors have not yet indicted him, despite conducting an investigation into the matter.

Xinhua-Agencies