a 22-month term stemming from corruption for two days. Liu, who formerly headed the China Development Industrial Bank and the Kuomintang's business committee, was in good shape when he left the hospital in a wheelchair for the prison.
Escorted by agents from the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau, Liu then rode an ambulance headed for the Taipei Penitentiary.
He agreed to report to jail after Liu Cheng-wu, the prosecutor in charge of his case, visited him at the hospital and examined the report on his medical checkup.
The prosecutor noted that the report indicated the 72-year-old tycoon should be healthy enough to serve his imprisonment, according to media reports.
Liu was supposed to begin his imprisonment Wednesday, but he claimed to have been taken ill the night before and was admitted to a small clinic in Taipei.
He was transferred to the Yang Ming Branch of the Taipei City Hospital Thursday.
Upon arrival at the Yang Ming hospital, he was wheeled on a stretcher, looking sick and unconscious. He then had a check up, and the report came out yesterday.
Prosecutor Liu, who was never convinced that the tycoon was too sick to go to jail, kept a close watch on his condition.
During their meeting at Liu's ward at Yang Ming, the prosecutor told the tycoon that "life will be most happy if one can face reality," according to the United Evening News.
While agreeing to go to jail, Liu complained that he was not given a fair trial by a court who failed to look at all the evidence, press reports said.
He asked the prosecutor to help him file a special appeal against the verdict, the reports said.
"(Liu) is indignant. We'll seek a retrial," the tycoon's attorney Chen Sung-tung told the press.
Liu was convicted of swindling two KMT-run firms out of NT$37 million when he headed the party's business committee in 1998.
Once regarded as the second most powerful man in the party after then President Lee Teng-hui because of his firm control on the KMT's huge business empire, Liu is still on trial on a few other corruption cases.
Observers said the tycoon might have wanted to delay his imprisonment fearing that he would not be able to get out alive, if he were also found guilty in the other cases and sentenced to more years in prison.
The prosecution had kept a close watch on Liu to prevent him from fleeing Taiwan since the court returned a final verdict last month, media reports said.
Many former officials charged in corruption cases have fled Taiwan.
One of the fugitives is former Legislative Speaker Liu Sung-pan. Another is former Legislator Wu Jzer-yuan, brother of the new deputy chief of the Examination Yuan.
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