A Taiwanese prison has decided not to imprison the wheelchair-bound wife of jailed former president Chen Shui-bian due to her poor health, ending months of controversy over her fate.
The decision on Wu Shu-chen, 57, made after an assessment by a medical team yesterday, was welcomed by Chen, who is serving a 19-year sentence in Taipei Prison after being convicted of corruption last year.
Wu, paralysed from the waist down after being run over by a farm vehicle in 1985, was escorted by police and security officers from her home in the southern city of Kaohsiung to Pei Teh prison hospital in central Taiwan, to start her matching sentence for corruption.
At Pei Teh, a 14-member medical team assessed her fitness for prison life. Wu cannot take care of herself and concerns had been expressed that it would be a waste of medical resources to keep her in jail and might create trouble for the government if she died in prison.
'The assessment shows that Wu's health condition conforms with Article 11 of the imprisonment regulations that she is not fit for jail,' spokesman Lin Chih-hsiung said.
Medical team spokesman Dr Yang Mei-tu said it was 'risky to place her in jail because she is unable to take care of herself'.