Former Yuanta Financial Holding President Ma Wei-chien said at a court hearing Thursday that he kept NT$740 million (US$ 23 million) for ex-President Chen Shui-bian 'out of sympathy' for Chen. Ma was indicted Dec. 24, 2009 along with 22 others for helping Chen conceal funds accumulated through corruption. The son of Yuanta Financial Holding's founder Rudy C.L. Ma told the Taipei District Court that Chen's wife Wu Shu-jen asked her brother Wu Ching-mao and Tu Li-ping, a former director of the board of Yuanta, to carry seven or eight trunks to his Taipei residence one day in 2006 and asked him to keep the trunks in his private vault in his basement. Ma said he asked Wu Ching-mao, whom he did not know, what was in the trunks, to which the latter responded 'cash.' Ma said that when he hesitated about whether to grant the request, Wu Ching-mao pleaded with him, saying that the money was to provide for Chen's living expenses after retirement. Ma said he agreed to keep the trunks and confirmed with Wu Ching-mao that they contained NT$740 million. Ma told the court that he asked Tu the next day 'why she put me to such trouble, ' whereupon Tu told him that she thought the trunks contained documents about forming an independent Taiwan because Wu Shu-jen told her there were secret documents in them. 'Tu was glad she thought she was doing something to help with the cause of Taiwan independence,' Ma said. Also Thursday, the Special Investigation Division under the Supreme Prosecutors Office announced that another US$1 million in funds stashed by the ex-first family in banks in Switzerland had been wired back to Taiwan. The latest remittance brought to US$ 13.51 million the amount of funds Chen's family had wired from Switzerland to Taiwan, with a further US$7 million left in two Swiss bank accounts. The Special Investigation Division, which is leading the probe into the ex-first family's alleged corruption, believes the money was illegally obtained by Chen and is seeking to confiscate it. The former president and his wife have already been sentenced to 20 years in jail for corruption by the Taiwan High Court in another case. 