Taiwan's former President Chen Shui-bian has been sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of corruption by a court in Taipei. Mr Chen was charged with embezzlement, taking bribes and money laundering, involving a total of $15m (�9m) while in office from 2000-2008.
Mr Chen had denied the charges, saying they were politically motivated. His wife, Wu Shu-chen, already jailed for perjury in the case, was also sentenced to life for corruption. The two were accused of embezzling $3.15m (�1.9m) from a special presidential fund and laundering it through Swiss banks.
They were also accused of accepting at least $9m in bribes from a Taiwanese company to help it sell a piece of land to the government and of accepting nearly $3m more in kickbacks for helping a contractor gain a government project. Mrs Wu had been sentenced on 2 September to one year in prison for perjury for asking her children to lie in court.
Nine other accused, including Mr Chen's son and daughter-in-law, have pleaded guilty to some charges related to the case. The case gripped the nation, correspondents say, with many expecting a guilty verdict but some believing it was political revenge on the part of the new ruling party.
Mr Chen says the charges against him are politically motivated, constructed by the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) government to please Beijing. Relations between Beijing and Taipei have been improving since the KMT, under President Ma, took office last year.
Taiwan has been ruled separately from China since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, when the defeated Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan to create a self-governing entity. But Beijing sees the island as a breakaway province which should be reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary.
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