THE Taipei District Court opened yesterday a trial of Annette Lu Hsiu-Lien, deputy chief of the Taiwan authority, on graft charges related to misuse of special funds, Taiwan's local media reported.

Besides Lu, Lu's secretary and several other people involved inthe case were summoned to the court, the local media said.

Lu denied the charges, saying she was unable to embezzle the funds since she did not know the procedures to claim reimbursements, or where the receipts used for the reimbursements were from, the local media reported.

Taiwan prosecutors indicted Lu Hsiu-lien, Chen Tang-shan, and Yu Shyi-kun of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and eight other people on graft charges for their misuse of special funds Sept. 21. The cases were transferred Oct. 17 to the Taipei District Court.

The prosecutors alleged that between December 2000 and May 2006, Lu's office staff and aides used other people's receipts worth 5.63 million New Taiwan Dollars to apply for reimbursements from the special fund for Lu.

The special discretionary funds are available to leading civil servants and politicians during their tenures of office. Half of the funds should be claimed with receipts, while the other half can be claimed merely with the recipient's signature.

The graft trials of Yu and Chen are scheduled to begin Nov. 26 and Dec. 3 respectively.

(Xinhua)