TAIPEI - Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou has lodged an appeal with a Taipei court over the alleged forgery of a document by a prosecutor in the run-up to last year's election, court officials said Monday.

Ma wants Ho Kuan-jen to stand trial after the prosecutor used the document to pursue allegations against Ma that the aspiring president had misused special expenses during his time as mayor of Taipei.

"We received the appeal of President Ma Ying-jeou in early March," Taipei District Court spokesman Huang Chun-ming told AFP.

The case had been thrown out by the prosecutors' office in the Taipei District Court and the High Court.

But according to Taiwan law, Ma is entitled to appeal to the district court directly asking it to review the previous decisions of the two prosecutors' offices.

"We respect President Ma's rights," the spokesman said.

If the final attempt to indict Ho is rejected, Ma would not be able to further appeal.

In the past, similar attempts against prosecutors were usually thrown out, another court official said.

Ma had denied Ho's allegations against him, made in 2007, saying he acted the same way as 6,500 other government officials entitled to special expenses.

The now-president said Ho had accumulated documents that distorted the testimony of witnesses and was part of a plot in the run-up to campaigning to keep him from power.

The High Court cleared Ma of corruption in a high-profile ruling in December 2007, freeing him to stand in the 2008 presidential vote for the Kuomintang party.

He duly saw off rival Frank Hsieh of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party in a landslide victory, but pursued his case against Ho nonetheless.