Police yesterday carried out heavy surveillance at Chen Chi-li's (陳啟禮) funeral service in Dazhi (
Police dispatched several hundred uniformed and plain-clothed officers to stand guard, in addition to setting up equipment to videotape the entire service.
Chen died of pancreatic cancer in Hong Kong on Oct. 4. He was 64.
PHOTO: AFP
The Criminal Investigation Bureau said that senior officers from Taipei City's 14 precincts have organized a special task force to identify gang members so fellow officers could take pictures of them and set up their file records for future reference.
Kao Cheng-sheng (
Thirty alleged gang members were interrogated by police yesterday for carrying guns, baseball bats and shock rods to the venue, he said.
PHOTO: FANG PIN-CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
Chen Chi-li was best known for his involvement in the October 1984 assassination of Chinese-American writer Henry Liu (
Chen was arrested in Taiwan one month later during a crackdown on organized crime.
At his trial, Chen Chi-li said he had carried out the murder at the request of Admiral Wang Hsi-ling (汪希苓), the head of the Military Intelligence Bureau, who suspected Liu of spying for Taiwan, China and the US.
Wang said in court that he gave Chen Chi-li the order to carry out the assassination out of patriotism.
Chen was sentenced to life in prison but released on parole in 1991 after a pardon. He later fled to Cambodia during another clampdown on organized crime and had lived in self-imposed exile there since 1996.
At a separate setting yesterday, President Chen Shui-bian (
"Unlike the former KMT government, we will not send Chen Chi-li to take people out," he said.
"We respect dissenting voices because the DPP is a party of such nature. We are not like the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) that decides everything by one man's say," he said.
President Chen made the remark after a heckler disrupted him while he was answering a question from the media after attending exhibitions at the World Trade Center.
The president was distracted when the heckler shouted, "We have such a hard time living a decent life."
He soon regained his composure and said he heard what the man said and did not mind the disturbance because it is a democratic and pluralistic society.
The heckler apparently lived a decent life or he would not have had the time, mood and money to see the exhibitions, President Chen said of the incident at another setting later yesterday.
"I did not want to embarrass him but I was quite amused," he said.
"We tolerate and respect different opinions, because that is the essence of democracy," he said.
"Although opposition parties and some in the media humiliate me and the DPP administration on a daily basis, I am proud to say that their freedom of speech and press are well protected," he said.
Additional reporting by AFP and staff writer
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS