The Taiwan High Court yesterday sentenced Chang Te-cheng (張德正), who last year rammed a 35-tonne gravel truck into the front entrance of the Presidential Office Building, to six years in prison for attempted murder.
It was the second ruling on the case, with the judge handing down a heavier sentence than the first ruling by the Taipei District Court on May 10, when Chang was given a jail term of five years, 10 months.
In addition, Chang is facing a civil lawsuit filed by the Presidential Office, which is seeking damages of NT$3.4 million (US$103,738).
Chang, 42, did not comment on the sentence, but did say that he had no intention of appealing his case to the Supreme Court.
His lawyers said they would wait to receive a verdict document before deciding whether to appeal.
Chang was prosecuted for running a truck over barricades in front of the Presidential Office Building in the early hours of Jan. 25 last year.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was not in the building at the time, as he was on an official tour of diplomatic allies in Central America.
During investigations, Chang said that he committed the crime because he was frustrated by the result of a lawsuit with his ex-wife, and by the justice system’s handling of his litigation, and that he was angry with Ma’s administration for wrong-headed policies and bad governance of the nation, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors accused Chang of several offenses, including attempted murder, obstruction of performance of public duties, destroying historic relics, damaging buildings and articles, and intrusion.
His lawyers maintained that Chang, suffering from mental stress, wanted to commit suicide and did not intend to kill anyone.
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
Taiwan’s passport ranked 34th in the world, with access to 141 visa-free destinations, according to the latest update to the Henley Passport Index released today. The index put together by Henley & Partners ranks 199 passports globally based on the number of destinations holders can access without a visa out of 227, and is updated monthly. The 141 visa-free destinations for Taiwanese passport holders are a slight decrease from last year, when holders had access to 145 destinations. Botswana and Columbia are among the countries that have recently ended visa-free status for Taiwanese after “bowing to pressure from the Chinese government,” the Ministry
RSS