A grandson of former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) yesterday denied charges that he threatened to harm the Taipei American School (TAS), the students and members of its faculty.
During a hearing at the Shilin District Court in Taipei, Andrew Chiang (蔣友青) said he never had any intention of intimidating TAS or using illegal means to deal with a conflict he had with the school.
A former TAS student who transferred to another school in 2006, Andrew Chiang was indicted on Nov. 28 after allegedly making threatening comments against the school, especially its deputy superintendent, via Facebook and e-mail, between August and last month.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
Prosecutors said an investigation showed that over the past two years, the 23-year-old had created loud noise disturbances several times on the school campus in protest against what he called unfair treatment by the school’s deputy superintendent while he was a student there.
On Aug. 21, he turned to Facebook to voice his anger, writing status updates in which he threatened to “slaughter” the school, prosecutors said.
He also sent e-mails from his home to the school’s deputy superintendent threatening to “spoil his life and throw him into jail,” they said.
In one of his Facebook posts, Andrew Chiang described himself as a terrorist and said he hated TAS and believes that the school killed his uncle.
Andrew Chiang’s lawyer said during the hearing that the Facebook posts were mostly expressions of emotions and that some were merely lyrics of pop songs.
Andrew Chiang did not directly mention the school in his posts or circulate the posts publicly, his lawyer said.
Andrew Chiang is the youngest of three sons of Chiang Hsiao-yung (蔣孝勇), who died of cancer in 1996 at the age of 48. Chiang Hsiao-yung was the youngest of three sons of Chiang Ching-kuo, who died in 1988 aged 77.
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