The Taiwan High Court ruled against former vice admiral Lei Hsueh-ming (雷學明) and others on Wednesday in a slander suit against former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

The appeals court’s ruling upholds a previous district court ruling in September last year. After the verdict, Lei told reporters that he was “very disappointed.”

The case was filed in late 2005 after Chen, speaking on a TV talk show, accused five retired Navy officers — without naming them — of accepting kickbacks to produce false performance data on Lafayette frigates to persuade the Navy to purchase them from France rather than alternative vessels from South Korea in 1990.

Chen also claimed that the officers had helped inflate the price of the vessels.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator William Lai (賴清德) and then-legislator Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) repeated the accusations at a separate press conference.

Lei, former rear admiral Wang Chin-sheng (王琴生), former captain Kang Shih-chun (康世淳), former captain Chang Jui-fan (張瑞帆) and former commander Cheng Chih-po (程志波) filed the slander suit against Chen, Hsu and Lai, seeking NT$2.01 billion (US$67 million) in compensation.

On September 9 of last year, the Taipei District Court ruled in favor of Chen, Hsu and Lai, finding that they did not commit slander because they harbored no ill will and the remarks were not offensive.

The high court also found Chen, Hsu and Lai innocent because they harbored no ill will, adding that whether kickbacks were involved in the Lafayette corruption scandal was of public concern.

In the ruling, the judges said that Chen, Hsu and Lai’s comments were not altogether unfounded, as Lei and others’ inappropriate handling of the Lafayette purchase later caused them to be censored and impeached by the Control Yuan.

The ruling is final and cannot be appealed.

On June 13, 2007, Swiss officials returned US$34 million in frozen bank deposits to Taiwan that were believed to be kickbacks connected to the purchase of six Lafayette-class frigates from France in 1991.