Taipei--Taiwan's high court on Thursday upheld a ruling against the country's former top prosecutor for leaking confidential information to President Ma Ying-jeou about a controversial probe into influence peddling claims.
Instead, judges increased the jail term for former prosecutor-general Huang Shyh-ming to 15 months, up one month from the previous sentence handed down in March last year, in a final ruling.
Huang was convicted of leaking secrets relating to the investigation in late 2013, which examined allegations that parliament speaker Wang Jin-pying meddled in a court case implicating an opposition legislator.
"Huang has marred the image of prosecutors supposed to work independently and breached the freedom of confidential information," the court said in a statement.
Huang could alternatively choose to pay a fine of Tw455,000 ($14,400) instead of serving the sentence.
Both Huang and the prosecution had appealed the ruling to the high court.
The information implicating the speaker was obtained by a wiretap on opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker Ker Chien-ming's phone, which prosecutors have insisted was legal.
However, the DPP has compared it to the Watergate phonetapping scandal in the United States, which resulted in the resignation of then-president Richard Nixon in 1974.
The legal row had sparked a political storm that saw two top officials resign, while thousands of protesters took to the streets to demand Ma's resignation.
Ma has said Wang was "unfit" to head parliament after he was accused of influencing prosecutors against appealing last year's acquittal of Ker in a breach of trust case.
While Ma described the incident as "the most shameful day" in Taiwan's democracy, the accusations have been strongly rejected by Wang.
AFP
