TAIPEI -- Taiwanese Vice President Annette Lu pleaded innocent to illegally collecting government reimbursements at the opening of her graft trial Monday.

Lu, who has prided herself on her clean fiscal record, is the highest-ranking Taiwanese official to stand trial on corruption charges.

The Harvard-educated Lu was indicted in September on charges of using bogus receipts for expenses to receive 5.6 million New Taiwan dollars (US$170,600; £á121,400) in reimbursements from the government between 2000 and 2006. Prosecutors say Lu's aides collected the receipts from unidentified parties.

Several other leading politicians, including the opposition Nationalist party presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou, have faced similar charges.

Lu told a judge at the Taipei District Court that she had no knowledge of how her aides claimed the reimbursements, and insisted that all the funds she received were used for official functions.

Before the trial opened, Lu read a strongly worded statement urging the judiciary not to press cases that could result in "purges, power struggles."

"I am speaking not for myself but the 6,500 officials" who might be implicated, she said, referring to the number of government employees with access to special government funds.

Lu said Taiwanese government auditors have for decades recognized special discretionary funds as subsidies for local and central government executives, allowing "loose standards" to be applied to the reimbursement payments.

"We must not allow the faults from an incomplete system of the old era to bring new disasters," she said.

Earlier this year, Ma faced charges that he misused a special fund while he was Taipei mayor from 1998 to 2006. A district court accepted his arguments that Taiwanese law recognized the fund as an official subsidy, and acquitted him in August.

However, prosecutors have filed an appeal to a higher court to challenge the acquittal.

Frank Hsieh, Ma's opponent in Taiwan's presidential election next March, was also investigated for misuse of discretionary funds during his tenure as mayor of the southern city of Kaohsiung. Prosecutors concluded that there was no reason to bring charges against him.