Pan-blue media identity jock Jaw Shaw-kong (
The suit was filed against President Chen Shui-bian (
The president sued Jaw and two pan-blue legislators after they made allegations of bribery and sexual misconduct between Chen and Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso, based on a report Jaw said he found on a Web site.
Reporters later found the report had come from the official site of the People's Daily, the state-run mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party.
Although the suit against Jaw was dismissed, the pan-blue lawmakers were forced to print an apology for their remarks.
However, Jaw filed a countersuit, claiming he was exercising his right to free speech and that he had been slandered by Chen and Su's criticism of his actions.
Chen in October 2004 quoted a classical Chinese poem which runs: "How the evil spirits clamor when the going gets tough" to express his displeasure over Jaw's allegations.
Jaw claimed that this meant Chen had defamed him by calling him an "evil spirit."
Premier Su Tseng-chang, who in 2004 was the Presidential Office secretary general, also chided Jaw as being a "disgrace" and an "unscrupulous media man."
Jaw, who has been Chen's nemesis since the two competed for the Taipei mayorship in 1994, filed a suit asking Chen and Su to run ads in all of the major Chinese-language newspapers to publicly apologize to him.
But the Taipei District Court yesterday decided against Jaw.
"I will appeal the suit in the Tai-wan High Court," UFO Radio chairman Jaw told reporters yesterday.
"Chen and Su's words were in response to Jaw's allegations that Chen offered money to a foreign ally, and the court does not think these responses slandered Jaw," Taipei District Court spokesman Liu Shou-sung (劉壽嵩) said.
Jaw yesterday said that Chen and Su were senior politicians who should have shown greater tolerance to media criticism, but instead used stern language to "attack his character."
Chen's lawyer, Ku Li-hsiung (顧立雄), had told the court that the president was merely airing his personal grievances about being misunderstood despite his hard work in promoting the nation's foreign relations.
Although Chen won the suit yesterday, in January he lost his libel suit against Jaw over the allegation that Chen had offered US$1 million to Moscoso.
"The issues relating to Taiwan's financing of its diplomatic allies concern the national interest and therefore are open to discussion," the Taipei District Court's ruling had said.
But in the same case, the court ruled in favor of Chen against People First Party legislators Liu Wen-hsiung (劉文雄) and Tsai Chung-han (蔡中涵), who were required to publish half-page apologies in the nation's major Chinese-language newspapers.
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