Mon, Mar 27, 2006 page2

• Prosecutors stare death in the face

  CAPITAL PUNISHMENT Lin Chang-ching and Chang Chin-tu are two of a group of five prosecutors who oversee implementation of the nation's death sentences

  • By Rich Chang / STAFF REPORTER
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  "When I oversaw the execution of a condemned prisoner for the first time, people witnessing the execution scrutinized my behavior. But I was calm and not at all afraid," said prosecutor Lin Chan-ching (林占青) of the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors' Office.

  Lin is one of five prosecutors -- and the only woman -- in charge of overseeing the executions of criminals sentenced to death.

  CLOSE TO DEATH

  "I do not stay far from the prisoners, but close enough to watch them as the executions are carried out with pistols. Then I make sure they are dead. This is the procedure every time I have been responsible for an execution," Lin said.

  She has held her post for five years and has overseen more than 10 executions, she told the Taipei Times.

  Chang Chin-tu (張金塗), a prosecutor at the Kaohsiung bureau of the Taiwan High Prosecutors' Office, who has been in charge of executions for eight years, told the Taipei Times that all prisoners receive anesthesia and are unconscious before they are shot.

  "Prisoners who agree to donate organs following their deaths are executed with a single shot to the head. Those who do not receive three shots to the heart," Chang said.

  "I feel sympathetic when a prisoner expresses remorse to me before their execution," he said. "But if the prisoner does not show any repentance, I feel OK."

  Lin said that almost all the prisoners at whose executions she had been present had confessed to the cruelty of their crimes, with one notable exception: Zhuo Zhangren (卓長仁), who screamed that he was innocent and sobbed before his death sentence was carried out.

  Zhuo was the mastermind of a group of six self-styled "freedom fighters," who became national heroes and gained international fame in 1983 after they hijacked a plane from China and flew it to South Korea.

  But Zhuo later went from hero to villain when he turned to a life of crime.

  He and Jiang Hongjun (姜洪軍) -- a member of Zhuo's group -- were sentenced to death for kidnapping and murdering one of the sons of a former vice president of Cathay General Hospital, Lin said.

  She said even the ruthless murderer Lin Ching-yueh (林清岳), who murdered his parents, stabbing them almost 100 times in order to claim an insurance payout and his inheritance in 1998, admitted his crime to her and agreed to donate his organs after his death.

  "All possible legal avenues of appeal were attempted and failed before the prisoners whose executions I have supervised were executed," she said.

  "I do not think anyone who didn't deserve it has been executed under my authority," she added.

  Chang earlier this year oversaw the execution of two brothers from Kaohsiung, Lin Meng-kai (林盟凱) and Lin Hsin-hung (林信宏).

  The brothers were sentenced to death for murdering one man and critically injuring another, both of whom were their neighbors, over a trivial dispute four years ago.

  According to the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), the Lin brothers expressed absolutely no remorse during their trials, and even said they would take revenge on the victims' families if they were able to leave jail.

  `LAST MEAL'

  Prosecutor Lin said that prisons prepare a "last meal" for prisoners who are informed of their ultimate fate a couple of hours before their executions.

  Few of them were able to eat, she said, adding that alcohol and cigarettes are also offered to the condemned individuals.

  "Although they are flagrant criminals, they show huge fear when they know they are soon going to die," Lin said.

  She said that many even attempted to delay the executions by asking to smoke a cigarette or use the restroom.

  Prosecutor Lin's apparently unsympathetic attitude toward prisoners sentenced to death and her insistence on keeping in place the nation's death penalty would appear to be at odds with the government's stated policy goal of "gradually" abolishing the death sentence.

  Lin has expressed her support for the death penalty at MOJ meetings.

  Of the 17 prisoners who were sentenced to death last year, just three were executed -- which suggests that the MOJ wishes to retain the capital punishment, but in practice is carrying out as few executions as possible.

  The MOJ said that the Supreme Prosecutors Office has filed extraordinary appeals to the Supreme Court for prisoners sentenced to death, making every effort to keep them alive.

  For those whose extraordinary appeals were rejected by the Supreme Court, the MOJ has also delayed their executions.

  Lin objects to these delays.

  She said that there is a contradiction inherent in prosecutors bringing criminal cases to court and actively seeking guilty verdicts, then being reluctant to carry out the sentences the courts give.

  "Haven't we seen the relatives of the victims of cruel crimes publicly call for the swift execution of prisoners given their final death sentence?" she said.

  "The MOJ should take into account the public's sentiment that executing sadistic criminals can bring comfort to members of victim's families and to society as a whole," Lin said.
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