Yu Shyi-kun announced in Taipei on Friday that he has resigned as chairman of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), according to Taiwan media reports.

Yu's resignation came hours after he was indicted by Taiwan's prosecutors on graft charge.

Taiwan prosecutors on Friday indicted Lu Hsiu-lien, Chen Tang-shan, and Yu Shyi-kun of DPP on graft charges for their misuse of special funds.

The party's candidate for the 2008 Taiwan leader election Frank Hsieh and his running mate Su Tseng-chang were cleared of such allegations, according to Taiwan media reports.

The prosecutors found that between December of 2000 and May of 2006, Lu's office staff and aids used other people's receipts worth 5.63 million New Taiwan dollars to apply for reimbursement from the "special funds" for administrative leaders.

They found that Yu and Chen had also claimed 2.38 million New Taiwan dollars and more than 360,000 New Taiwan dollars respectively in the same way.

Special funds are subsidies to administrative leaders of different levels in Taiwan during their tenure. Half of the payment should be claimed with receipts, while the other half could be claimed with merely a signature of the leaders.

(Xinhua News Agency September 22, 2007)