Taiwan court opens third hearing of deputy chief's graft trial

BEIJING, April 14 (Xinhua) -- Lu Hsiu-Lien (Annette Lu), outgoing deputy chief of the Taiwan authority, appeared in the Taipei District Court on Monday for the third sitting of her trial on corruption charges related to misuse of special funds, Taipei media reports.

On Sept. 21, Taiwan prosecutors indicted Lu, Yu Shyi-kun and Chen Tang-shan of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and eight other people on graft charges for misuse of special funds.

The cases were transferred on Oct. 17 to the Taipei District Court, which opened the trial on Nov. 19.

The prosecutors alleged that between December 2000 and May 2007,Lu's office staff and aides used other people's receipts worth 5.63 million New Taiwan dollars (about 176,000 U.S. dollars) to apply for reimbursements from the special fund for Lu.

Special discretionary funds are available to leading civil servants and politicians during their terms of office. Half of the claims should be supported by receipts, while the other half can be claimed with just a signature. (One U.S. dollar equals 32 New Taiwan dollars).