Taiwan’s former president Chen Shui-bian on Friday quit the Democratic Progressive Party after money laundering allegations against him and his family surfaced this week.
‘I have to say sorry to DPP members and supporters with a heavy heart. I let everybody down and caused irreparable damage to the party. This was not my intention but I made mistakes,’ Chen said in a statement.
‘To show my deepest remorse, my wife Wu Shu-chen and I leave the DPP from now,’ he said.
The statement came hours after Taiwan’s premier, Liu Chao-shiuan, confirmed an investigation had been launched into the money laundering claims apparently implicating the Chen family, following similar moves by Swiss authorities. Swiss prosecutors ‘have requested assistance in their investigation and we have immediately started our own probe,’ Liu told reporters.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office sent a top official to Switzerland earlier this week ‘to exchange views’ with the authorities there, said spokesman Fred Lin.
The former president admitted that his wife Wu Shu-chen had wired abroad 20 million US dollars from his past campaign funds, saying she had done so without his knowledge.
Copies of Swiss documents obtained by Kuomintang lawmaker Hung Hsiu-chu showed that Chen’s son Chen Chih-chung and daughter-in-law Huang Jui-ching had transferred 31 million US dollars to Huang’s Swiss bank accounts in 2007.
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