Former president Chen Shui-bian’s application for a passport was “old news” and Taiwan’s judicial system would be proven unjust if it abused its power and extended his detention by raking up old news as new evidence, Chen’s office said yesterday.

On Wednesday, former Presidential Office secretary Chen Hsin-yi testified in court that Chen Shui-bian had told her to file an application for a passport for him “most urgently” soon after he stepped down last July. Chen Hsin-yi added that then-first lady Wu Shu-jen told her to pay for the application fees for passports for the then-first family using the “state affairs fund.”