Former Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou appeared in court again on Tuesday, disputing the reliability of the evidence presented by local prosecutors who have charged him with corruption.

Ma, the former leader of Taiwan's main opposition party Kuomintang (KMT), affirmed his innocence and said he trusted in the court to render justice, according to local media.

Ma first appeared in court on April 3, pleading not guilty to the corruption charges on the opening day of his trial.

At that session, Ma said that when he was Taipei mayor, he had used the government special allowances funds in line with the conventions the Taiwan authorities have followed since 1988 and had never personally applied for reimbursement from the special funds.

Earlier media reports have said that if Ma is found guilty, a slew of similar cases will follow because 65,000 other government chiefs have acted in the same way as Ma.

Special allowance funds are allocated by the Taiwan authorities to executive officers at various levels in Taiwan. Official receipts are only required for half the special allowance funds, while the spending of the other half only requires the signature of the official.

Regulations concerning the expenditure of government special allowances have never been clear. Lu Hsiu-lien, Su Tseng-chang, Hsieh Chang-ting and Yu Shyi-kun, major leaders of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), have all been found involved in similar cases, but prosecutors seem to be lying down on investigations.

Taiwan prosecutors indicted Ma on charges of corruption on Feb. 13, accusing him of diverting 11 million New Taiwan dollars (333,000 U.S. dollars) from Taipei mayor's special allowance funds to his private account during his tenure as Taipei mayor.

Ma resigned as KMT chairman after the indictment but immediately declared that he would be a candidate in the 2008 Taiwan leader election.
Taiwan prosecutors have also indicted Yu Wen, former secretary of the Taipei mayor's office, on charges of forgery and corruption.