Lin Jin-tsun, spokesman for the Taipei District Prosecutors Office, said Yeh, who just retired from his post as IB chief on July 16, withheld information about overseas bank accounts held in the names of Chen Shui-bian’s family members.

The jail term sought by prosecutors is harsher than usual because the defendant is a government official, he said. Lin said the bureau’s Anti-Money Laundering Center obtained the information from the global anti-money laundering association Egmont Group on Jan. 27.

The bureau was supposed to forward the information to the Supreme Prosecutors Office.

Yeh instead told his staff that he would personally handle the case, considering the extremely sensitive nature of the affair.

However, the Supreme Prosecutors Office never received the information, Lin added.

Chou You-yi, director of the Investigation Bureau’s Anti-Money Laundering Center, asked Yeh about the status of the case in March. Yeh told Chou that he would hand it over to Prosecutor General Chen Tsung-min in person, prosecutor Lin related.

Lin quoted the prosecutor general as saying that he never received such information.

Yeh later claimed that he had forgotten to pass on the information to Chen Tsung-min because the country was embroiled in a fiercely contested presidential election at the time.

After Yeh came under investigation concerning the case, Yeh said he had been busy with preparing for his retirement after the new administration of the ruling Kuomintang took office on May 20.

Lin said a search of Yeh’s homes in Muzha in Taipei and other storage places in Taoyuan on Aug. 21 yielded a photocopy of the information from Egmont but not the original document.

“The fact that Yeh carefully kept a photocopy of the information belies his claim that he totally forgot about the whole matter,” Lin said.

Yeh declined to tell investigators where the original copy is.

The news broke in late July, after two Swiss prosecutors asked Taiwan authorities for help in investigating a possible case of money laundering, involving a reported sum of US$21 million deposited in Swiss bank accounts under the name of Chen Shui-bian’s daughter-in-law.

Lin indicated that it was not the first time Yeh had withheld crucial information about the former first family during his tenure of almost seven years as the nation’s top criminal investigator.

In December 2006, the bureau received information provided by Singapore, a member nation of the Egmont Group, about possible money laundering involving then first lady Wu Shu-Chen. But the bureau failed to pass on the information to prosecutors, Lin said.

According to Lin, Yeh maintained he conveyed the information in 2006 to then Prosecutor General Wu Ying-chao. Wu denied Yeh’s claim when he was questioned by prosecutors.

Regarding the more recent information from Egmont about the ex-first family’s bank accounts in the Cayman Islands, many political observers have suggested that Yeh gave Chen Shui-bian the original copy, which investigators have not yet found.

They have also urged the prosecutors to look into the possibility that Yeh may have tipped off the ex-president about an imminent probe of his family’s overseas bank accounts.

Yeh’s alert on Chen about the Egmont probe would have given the former president a lengthy period of 1.5 years to find new places to hide the funds and build “fire walls” to ward off any investigations.

Yeh, who graduated from the Department of Law at National Chung Hsing University, was promoted by Chen Shui-bian to head the Ethics Department at the Taipei City Government while Chen was serving as mayor.

Chen promoted Yeh to head the IB in 2001 after he became president in 2000.

Yeh, 65, became the first IB chief to be banned from leaving the nation, whose residence was searched, and indicted.

The coverup for Chen’s family and the indictment not only brought disgrace to Yeh personally but also shattered the bureau’s credibility and its staff members, who have taken vows to uphold impartiality and justice, and to serve the people and nation, not a single person or family, said some analysts.

They said there could be more senior officials acting just like Yeh to cover up for Chen.

These people acted like accomplices to condone and encourage Chen’s ignoring the nation’s laws, they said.

However, taxpayers will have to continue paying Yeh his pension of NT$130,000 every month, unless he is stripped of these rights for life or changes his nationality, according to existing regulations.

The newly resurrected Control Yuan, which had been suspended by Chen for several years, is expected to impeach Yeh after it completes a separate and independent investigation.