Prosecutor Chen said that the interrogation was based on the letter of indictment against the ex-President on charges of corruption, as all documents and materials involved in the probe of the ex-president’s embezzlement allegations remained classified.

Meanwhile, Prosecutor Chu Chao-liang, now a spokesman with the SCID, said they will move to summon the ex-President for a second round of interrogations in the short term, based on the direct photocopies of all the documents and materials involved, which were declassified by President Ma Ying-jeou last Wednesday.

Chu declined to reveal the exact date for the next interrogation on the ex-President.

But it is expected that the second round of interrogation on the ex-President will take much longer time to complete, due mainly to the availability of much more documents and materials as references for prosecutors to raise questions for Chen to answer.

President Ma decided to declassify all Chen’s documents and materials last Wednesday on grounds that none of the documents and materials fit the description of national secrets in the National Secret Protection Law.

Ma made the decision after he personally read through some of the documents and an ad hoc team conducted a careful examination of all of them.

None of the documents or materials that Chen had classified as national secrets actually involved information concerning military affairs, diplomatic operations or any other sensitive matter, according to Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi.

The declassification came as a response to prosecutors’ request to look into the classification status of the documents archiving Chen’s use of his presidential state affairs expenses during his eight-year stint between 2000 and 2008.

Revelations of these documents would do no harm to national security or interests, but would help prosecutors investigate the alleged corruption case involving the ex-President Chen Shui-bian.

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