Lin Teh-hsun has become the third person to end up in detention in the probe after the Taipei District Court late Friday night granted prosecutors permission to detain him.

Lin, director of Chen’s office from 2005-2008, is suspected of involvement in embezzlement, fraud, and destroying evidence, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors, trying to trace the money Chen had allegedly embezzled from the presidential state affairs funds, yesterday also further questioned Chen Chen-hui and Tsai Ming-che, both of whom had already been detained.

Both were remanded to custody following the interrogation.

Former Deputy Presidential Secretary General Ma Yung-cheng was also interviewed as a witness in the state affairs funds case. Ma was allowed to go home after the session.

Chen Chen-hui, the former cashier of the Presidential Office during Chen’s stint, is believed to have handled the former-president’s overseas transactions.

Tsai, a brother of Tsai Mei-li, who is a close friend of ex-first lady Wu Shu-jen, has been alleged to have taken bribes along with the ex-president from a land developer and providing overseas bank accounts for the Chen family to use in laundering money.

The former president has repeatedly maintained his innocence, calling the investigation a witch hunt. He claims that the money from the state affairs funds was used in secret diplomatic missions.

In response to Chen’s claims, Justice Minister Wang Ching-feng said she respects his freedom of speech.

But she said society will make its own judgment, and the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) will abide by the law while conducting the probe.

The SIU said that the rules for the use of state affairs fund stipulated that secret expenses have to be sent to a special account before they can be used. The use then has to justified by a formal document reporting on the purpose of the expenditure.

But the prosecutors have found that while Lin and Chen Chen-hui had helped the former president claim secret expenses from the “state affairs fund,” they failed to provide the required documentation.

The prosecutors have raided Chen Shui-bian and Chen Chen-hui’s residences, seizing the latter’s computer disks storing records of the use of secret expenses.

Chen Chen-hui reportedly admitted that some secret funds were used by the former first lady for personal use and some of the funds were wired to overseas bank accounts belonging to Wu’s brother Wu Ching-mao on Wu Shu-jen’s instructions.

Prosecutors said that Lin, while serving as Chen Shui-bian’s chief secretary, handled all the claims and expenditures of the secret expenses from the state affairs funds, and should have first-hand knowledge of Wu Shu-jen’s use of the funds.

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