As the investigation into the murder of a young Hong Kong woman who came to Taiwan for a vacation last month continues, police officers yesterday said her autopsy results indicated she might have been strangled.
The body of 20-year-old Poon Hiu-wing (潘曉穎) was recovered yesterday morning from an overgrown field just outside Zhuwei (竹圍) MRT station in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水).
Hong Kong police on Tuesday arrested Poon’s boyfriend, 20-year-old Hong Kong college student Chan Tung-kai (陳同佳), media reports said.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
Poon and Chan arrived in Taiwan on Feb. 8 for a holiday and to spend Valentine’s Day together, Taipei police said.
The couple visited several places and on Feb. 13 checked into the Purple Garden Hotel in Taipei.
Chan checked out of the hotel alone on Feb. 17 and returned to Hong Kong that night, they said.
Photo: Screen grab from Facebook
Investigators believe the pair got into an argument, and suspect that Chan, in a fit of anger, strangled Poon, stuffed her body inside a pink suitcase and disposed of it outside Zhuwei MRT Station.
Surveillance cameras show Chan towing a pink suitcase on the morning of Feb. 17 and taking the MRT to the station, where police believe he disposed of her body and abandoned the luggage at another location.
Video footage shows Chan returning to the hotel in the evening without the suitcase, and then checking out.
Poon’s parents filed a missing person’s report with Hong Kong authorities.
Hong Kong police found that Chan had used Poon’s bank card to withdraw money on two occasions, on Feb. 17 in Taiwan and on Feb. 20 in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong police have begun negotiations with Taiwanese authorities to transfer Chan to Taipei for investigation.
As Hong Kong and Taiwan do not have an extradition treaty, Hong Kong media have quoted officials as saying that the negotiations might take some time, because a special provisional bill might be needed for an extradition request, which has to be approved by the territory’s Legislative Council.
Police and investigators yesterday went to the hotel where the couple had stayed to search for possible evidence.
Chan has reportedly confessed to Hong Kong police that he killed Poon and has told them where he disposed of her body.
Local media reports said that Poon’s father, who came to Taiwan to ask the police to look for his daughter, was distraught as he was accompanied by officials to a Taipei morgue to see her body and wait for autopsy results.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Wednesday said that a new chip manufacturing technology called “A16” is to enter production in the second half of 2026, setting up a showdown with longtime rival Intel over who can make the fastest chips. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of advanced computing chips and a key supplier to Nvidia and Apple, announced the news at a conference in Santa Clara, California, where TSMC executives said that makers of artificial intelligence (AI) chips will likely be the first adopters of the technology rather than a smartphone maker. Analysts said that the technologies announced on
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
CALL FOR DIALOGUE: The president-elect urged Beijing to engage with Taiwan’s ‘democratically elected and legitimate government’ to promote peace President-elect William Lai (賴清德) yesterday named the new heads of security and cross-strait affairs to take office after his inauguration on May 20, including National Security Council (NSC) Secretary-General Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to be the new defense minister and former Taichung mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) as minister of foreign affairs. While Koo is to head the Ministry of National Defense and presidential aide Lin is to take over as minister of foreign affairs, Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) would be retained as the nation’s intelligence chief, continuing to serve as director-general of the National Security Bureau, Lai told a news conference in Taipei. Koo,
MANAGING DIFFERENCES: In a meeting days after the US president signed a massive foreign aid bill, Antony Blinken raised concerns with the Chinese president about Taiwan US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and senior Chinese officials, stressing the importance of “responsibly managing” the differences between the US and China as the two sides butt heads over a number of contentious bilateral, regional and global issues, including Taiwan and the South China Sea. Talks between the two sides have increased over the past few months, even as differences have grown. Blinken said he raised concerns with Xi about Taiwan and the South China Sea, along with China’s support for Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, as well as other issues