Lee Teng-hui unaware of summon

He was responding to media reports that the Special Investigation Division (SID) would summon him to a questioning over the allegations made against him by former President Chen Shui-bian.

Lee made the remarks in Taipei before boarding a high-speed train to Chiayi, where he was supposed to deliver a speech in which he would heavily criticize the Chen administration for corruption.

SID spokesman Chen Yun-nan said prosecutors are still collecting further details of the Lee case, which he said is only preliminary.

But he declined to comment on the reports about summoning Lee.

Chen has accused Lee of having laundered as much as US$51 million through overseas dummy accounts, but Lee has repeatedly denied the allegations.

“That's laughable stuff,” said Lee yesterday when asked to comment on the money laundering allegations.

In Chiayi, Lee said some political figures have been taking bribes and laundering money over the past eight years, but some of their supporters remain loyal to them.

“They (the supporters) cannot tell right from wrong,” said Lee at a gathering of his own supporters.

“They, along with the corrupt rulers and the collective corruption, are the worm in the heart of Taiwan,” he said.

He said it made him cry to see rampant corruption during the past eight years — when Chen and the Democratic Progressive Party governed Taiwan.

“The country was run in a such a way. That's really a great shame,” he said.

But after President Ma Ying-jeou and the Kuomintang wrested back rule from the DPP, they have turned it into a “big monster” who can do whatever they want in violation of the principle of democracy, Lee said.

The KMT has almost three fourths of the Legislature's seats.

Lee said democracy was what made Taiwan proud and what differentiated it from China.

But he said democracy and the human rights conditions in Taiwan have been back pedaling.

“Students staging sit-in protests at the Chiang Kai-shek (CKS) Memorial Hall have been beaten up by police. That never happened in the past,” he said.

He was referring to students who have been staging sit-in protests at the Liberty Square (formerly CKS Memorial Hall) to demand changes to the assembly law.

They are asking lawmakers to scrap the requirements that organizers of assemblies obtain permits.

Lee, expressing support for the students, said the assembly law must be revised.

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