Taiwan's high court on Thursday rejected the counter appeal of the island's former leader Chen Shui-bian, upholding the decision to detain him till June 23 for his corruption case.

Chen Shui-bian[File photo]

On April 16, the court decided to prolong Chen's detention by two months considering that he might still flee before his family's overseas assets were transferred back to prosecutors.

Chen and his wife were both sentenced to life imprisonment by the Taipei District Court in September last year for corruption, embezzlement, money laundering and other abuses when he was in power from 2000 to 2008.

They were found to have embezzled 104 million New Taiwan dollars (3.15 million U.S. dollars) in public funds by the Taipei District Court.