TAIPEI: A Taiwan court today sentenced ex-president Chen Shui-bian to life in jail after a corruption trial that he said was political revenge for his lifelong push to declare independence from China.

Chen, the first former Taiwan leader to be convicted in a criminal case, boycotted the verdict at the Taipei

district court, which also handed a life term to his wheelchair-bound wife Wu Shu-chen.

A court official said 58-year-old Chen — held at a detention centre on the

outskirts of Taipei since

December — was found guilty of embezzling state funds, laundering money, accepting bribes and committing forgery.

“Chen was using his background and position to cause damage to the country. That’s why the court sentenced him to life imprisonment,” court spokesman Huang Chun-ming said.

Hundreds of protesters rallied outside the court shouting, “A-Bian is innocent” and “Release A-Bian”, using Chen’s nickname.

Chen spokesman Chiang Chi-ming said the verdict was “totally unacceptable” and “illegal”, blasting a decision to replace the judges in the middle of the trial.

“This is obviously a political persecution targeting former president Chen,” Chiang told AFP.

Under Taiwanese law,

a life sentence is automatically appealed.

The former president’s son Chen Chih-chung got a prison term of two and

a half years for money laundering, while daughter-in-law Huang Jui-ching received a suspended sentence for the same charge.

“We are very disappointed,” Chen Chih-chung told reporters through his lawyer.

The verdicts marked

the climax of a court drama that has gripped and

divided the island’s 23 million people for months.

Chen, who also received a fine of $6.1 million, had blasted the trial as a vendetta triggered by his eight years in power when he was pursuing independence from

China. Taiwan has been

governed separately from China since 1949, but Beijing still considers the island as part of its territory and has vowed to take it back, by force if necessary.