There is widespread suspicion in the US that politics played a role in the sentencing of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and his wife Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) on Friday. “This is political persecution by judicial means,” said Bob Yang (楊英育), president of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA), a Washington-based advocacy organization of Taiwanese-Americans.

The LA Times called the sentence “unexpectedly stiff” and said the trial was “steeped in politics.”