Taiwan court rejects ex-leader's detention appeal

Taiwan's jailed former president Chen Shui-bian has lost his latest bid to be freed on bail while he appeals a life sentence for corruption, his aide said Wednesday.

Taiwan's former president Chen Shui-bian, pictured inside Taipei Detention Centre in Tucheng, on Tuesday, has lost his latest bid to be freed on bail while he appeals a life sentence for corruption, his aide said Wednesday.

"The former president was disappointed by the decision of the three judges" at Taipei's district court, Chiang Chih-ming, an aide to Chen, told reporters.

Chen, who has been in custody since last year, posed a flight risk and could collude with other suspects in his wide-ranging graft case or destroy evidence if freed on bail, the court said in its decision rejecting the application.

It said it was necessary to keep Chen in custody "in order to ensure the smooth process of the trial".

The opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which Chen once led, has urged the government to free him immediately.

Chen was first detained in November before he was formally charged with corruption. He was freed on bail for two weeks in December until the court replaced the judges in his case. The new judges ordered that Chen be detained.

The former president received a life sentence last week, which he has dismissed as "invalid."

Chen was convicted of taking bribes, embezzling state funds and forging documents, among other crimes. His wheelchair-bound wife Wu Shu-chen was also given a life term on graft charges.

Under Taiwanese law, a life sentence is automatically appealed. But Chen on Monday also filed an appeal against his corruption conviction, Chiang said.

The 58-year-old Chen has blasted the trial as a vendetta carried out by the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang administration over his pro-independence stance during eight years in power.

Taiwan has been governed separately from China since 1949, but Beijing still considers the island as part of its territory and has vowed to take it back, by force if necessary.