Taiwan's wheelchair-bound first lady passed out during the first session of her embezzlement and forgery trial Friday, throwing into chaos the court proceedings that could force her husband from office.
Wu Shu-chen collapsed shortly after pleading not guilty to charges she and three aides to President Chen Shui-bian skimmed $450,000 from a special presidential fund used to sustain Taiwanese diplomatic activities abroad.
When she and the aides were indicted on Nov. 3, prosecutors said Chen also could be indicted when his immunity lapses after he leaves office.
Two days later, Chen proclaimed his innocence and that of his wife, and told a nationwide TV audience he would step down if she was found guilty.
Wu collapsed during a recess in the trial proceedings, held on the second floor of Taipei District Court, not far from the Presidential Office building.
Television filmed her being carried out of the court by an unidentified woman and loaded into a waiting ambulance. Wu's eyes were closed and she did not appear to be moving.
A doctor at National Taiwan University Hospital said Wu was suffering from an irregularly low temperature and slow heartbeat, but her condition was not serious.
"We gave her some medicine, and her situation improved," Lin Ho-hsiung said. "She is now under close observation. Her temperature and heartbeat are stable again."
While the court proceedings against the three Chen aides continued, Taipei District Court spokesman Liu Song-kao said the court would have to postpone the case against Wu if she was unable to attend future sessions.
"The part of the trial dealing with the first lady cannot continue without her and her attorneys present," he said.
Wu's trial began in the shadow of her precarious physical condition, and doubts about her ability to hold up in the face of an expected firestorm of media attention.
She has been paralyzed from the waist down since a truck ran over her in 1985, just as Chen and his allies from the nascent Democratic Progressive Party were struggling to break the monopoly grip on power of Taiwan's once dominant Nationalists.
Chen called the incident an assassination attempt and blamed the Nationalists for carrying it out _ a charge they deny.
In recent months Wu has appeared frail and sickly, with some reports placing her weight at less than 70 pounds.
Wu appeared pale and sickly when she arrived at the courthouse in downtown Taipei. Her attendance had been in doubt until the last minute because of concerns over her health.
Wu was once widely respected for the considerable suffering she has endured.
However, sympathy for the 54-year-old physician's daughter from southern Taiwan began to recede in 2005 and early 2006 when it was alleged she had used insider information to make large amounts of money on the stock market, and had been given expensive gift vouchers from an upscale Taipei department store in exchange for helping to arrange for a change in its ownership.
Prosecutors later found there was insufficient evidence to charge her in connection with receipt of the vouchers, but the public outcry following disclosures of her stock trading activities led her to promise to suspend them.
Wu also has been pilloried in the Taiwanese media over her jewelry collection, including an expensive Breguet watch and $185,000 jade earrings.
Foes and even some former friends have likened her to the Dowager Empress, the early 20th century Chinese monarch widely reviled for her luxurious lifestyle and willful political maneuvering.
Her indictment followed almost a year of nonstop allegations by opposition lawmakers about Chen's alleged improprieties.
On Wednesday a Taipei judge sentenced former presidential aide Chen Che-nan to 12 years in prison for accepting bribes from a businessman to help him solve legal problems.
The two Chens are not related.
Later this month a court in the capital is scheduled to issue a verdict on an insider trading scandal allegedly involving Chen's son-in-law.
Source: AP News
