The review was carried out in a courtroom, where both prosecutors and lawyers of Ma — who is currently a presidential candidate — shared the view that there was nothing inaccurate or falsified in the records of statements made by Wu Li-ju, a cashier in the Taipei City Government.

But Ma’s lawyer Sung Yao-ming demanded that records of the review session replace records produced by prosecutors, but Prosecutor Huang Hui-ming opined that Sung’s demand could hardly stand to reason.

In response, chief court judge Tsai Shou-hsun said that whether Wu’s additional statements at the review process could be used as new evidence to attest to Ma’s innocence or guilt would be dealt with in the verdict, to be issued by the court.

Ma, also present at the review session, said whether there are discrepancies between prosecutors’ audio records and the real statements made by Wu could be well judged by news media coverage of the review session.

Ma’s lawyers requested last week that the records be reviewed, as cashier Wu Li-ju claimed that the contents of some of her statements recorded by prosecutor Ho Kuan-jen were not what she said or meant when questioned on Jan. 25.

The lawyers alleged that Ho had induced or misled certain witnesses to make certain statements when he had questioned them during the investigation.

The team of prosecutors leading the charges against Ma first objected to the lawyers’ demand in the court, but changed their mind later and agreed to an examination of the CDs in court at 2:30 p.m. yesterday.

The prosecutors said in a statement they had found that both of the two “transcripts” of Wu’s testimony published by local media do not fully comply with the original recording by the court.

Chiu Chung-yi, a senior prosecutor at the Ministry of Justice, said there should be new rules enacted to prohibit lawyers from leaking the contents of testimonies with jail terms.

He said laws in both Germany and Japan ban lawyers from leaking the statements made by witnesses in an ongoing trial case.

Violators are subject to penalties of an imprisonment of under one year or fines in Germany, and in Japan they can receive a similar jail term or a fine up to 500,000 yen, according to Chiu.

He suggested that lawyers be banned from leaking witness statements to the press or others, or face a penalty of a jail term under one year or fine of up to NT$300,000.

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