A Taiwan court on Monday ordered the detention of former internal security chief Yeh Sheng-mao for alleged corruption and reportedly leaking top secrets to former president Chen Shui-bian over a money-laundering scandal.

"He allegedly violated the anti-corruption law by covering up the case in a bid to profit a third party," a court spokesman said of Yeh. "He also allegedly violated the national classification information law by leaking top secrets to a third party."

The court detained Yeh to prevent him from hampering evidence, said the court spokesman.

Yeh was charged in late August with concealing documents that hindered investigations into the alleged money laundering implicating Chen. Prosecutors are seeking a jail sentence of two and a half years against him.

The documents concerning alleged money laundering by Chen's wife, Wu Shu-chen, were submitted by the head of the anti-money laundering centre to then-director of the Investigation Bureau, Yeh, in February, according to the indictment.

Yeh later told the head of the centre that he had personally handed the documents to prosecutor-general Chen Tsung-ming for further investigation and necessary legal action, the indictment said.

Yeh never passed on the documents, claiming later he forgot as he was busy during the transition between governments. He said he had verbally told the prosecutor-general about the issue, but Chen Tsung-ming denied the claim.

On August 21, prosecutors searched Yeh's home and found copies of the documents, indicating that it is unlikely that Yeh forgot about them, the indictment said.

Yeh was the first person to have been indicted in the snowballing money laundering scandal involving the former president and his family.

The allegations surfaced in June when Swiss judicial authorities alerted Taiwan after detecting unusual transfers of 21 million US dollars in bank accounts set up by Swiss banks in the Cayman Islands for Chen's son and daughter-in-law.

The scandal was first revealed by a Taiwan magazine on August 10. On August 14, Chen admitted that his wife had remitted 21 million US dollars into several foreign bank accounts.

Chen had not declared the monies, which were leftover campaign funds from the 2000 and 2004 presidential election.

Two former chief aides of Chen and an associate of Wu were also arrested for their alleged roles in helping with the fund management and transfers.

Prosecutors have questioned Chen, his wife, brother-in-law, son and daughter-in-law over their alleged roles in the scandal and barred them from leaving Taiwan.

Chen stepped down as president in May after serving two terms from 2000. He was succeeded by Ma Ying-jeou of the Nationalist Party.