The Transitional Justice Commission is reportedly targeting five cases for investigation: the murder of former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Lin I-hsiung’s (林義雄) mother and twin daughters, the death of democracy advocate Chen Wen-chen (陳文成), the Lei Chen (雷震) incident, the Wuhan Hotel incident and the self-immolation of democracy advocate Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕).
Before the commission was established, the National Archives Administration (NAA) was often denied access to politically sensitive documents by the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau (MJIB), the Criminal Investigation Bureau and other agencies, an unnamed government official said.
When the NAA requested documents relating to the murder of Lin’s family members, it was told that those documents did not exist, the source said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
After the commission stepped up, the MJIB handed over documents from the case for the first time since the murders took place in 1980, the source said.
However, the 20 boxes of documents had suffered water damage, the source said.
The bureau’s file room was flooded when Typhoon Nari hit Taiwan in 2001, but the commission is investigating whether the damage was really caused by the floods or whether they underwent “special treatment,” the source added.
Lin’s family members were stabbed to death at his house on Feb. 28, 1980. The murder remains unsolved, but is often thought to have been politically motivated because Lin was a leader of the democracy movement and was at the time detained following the Kaohsiung Incident.
A government official involved in the case said that the commission has also received a letter from an unidentified source providing clues in the case of Chen’s death.
The commission believes that the letter has a high degree of credibility, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The mailer appears to have information about the inner workings of the former Taiwan Garrison Command that the public does not know, the source said.
On July 3, 1981, Chen, a 31-year-old associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University, was found dead on a lawn at National Taiwan University a day after being detained for questioning by Taiwan Garrison Command officers.
Then-spokesperson of the Taiwan Garrison Command Hsu Mei-lin (徐梅鄰) and then-director of the Executive Yuan’s Department of Information Services Chu Tsung-ko (朱宗軻) said at a news conference at the time that garrison command officers sent Chen home after questioning and believed that he had committed suicide.
However, others said that Chen had died at the hands of the garrison command.
New clues have emerged that point to murder by the command, commission investigators said, adding that the case is awaiting further investigation.
Meanwhile, an investigation into the Wuhan Hotel incident, which occurred during the White Terror era, is to be opened at the request of the victims’ family.
In July 1959, Wuhan Hotel manager Yao Chia-chen (姚嘉薦) was found dead inside the hotel.
Police and prosecutors originally ruled it a suicide, but months later, the MJIB decided that Yao had been killed and seven people, including Huang Hsueh-wen (黃學文), Yang Hsun-chun (楊薰春) and National Taiwan University professor Chen Hua-chou (陳華洲) — who stayed at the hotel — were arrested and charged with murder.
The bureau allegedly tortured the seven to extract confessions that they were communist spies or murderers. Despite being convicted of murder and jailed, all seven repeatedly stated their innocence and appealed the sentence between 1960 and 1976.
The death, which started as a suicide case, became a murder case after the bureau became involved, former Control Yuan member Tao Pai-chuan (陶百川) said.
Research by Tao showed that then-president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) targeted Lei’s friends to prevent Lei from forming a political party, he said.
Chen Hua-chou was reportedly a close ally of Lei, a high-ranking Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) official and adviser to Chiang who was imprisoned for treason after he supported democratic reforms.
The commission’s investigations of cases that occurred under authoritarian rule would not be limited to these five cases, it said in a statement.
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was questioned by prosecutors for allegedly orchestrating an attack on a taxi driver after he was allegedly driven on a longer than necessary route in a car he disliked. The questioning at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office was ongoing as of press time last night. Police have recommended charges of attempted murder. The legally embattled actor — known for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代) — is under a separate investigation for allegedly using fake medical documents to evade mandatory military service. According to local media reports, police said Wang earlier last year ordered a
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
President William Lai (賴清德) should protect Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), and stop supporting domestic strife and discord, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrote on Facebook yesterday. US President Donald Trump and TSMC on Monday jointly announced that the company would invest an additional US$100 billion over the next few years to expand its semiconductor manufacturing operations in the US. The TSMC plans have promoted concern in Taiwan that it would effectively lead to the chipmaking giant becoming Americanized. The Lai administration lacks tangible policies to address concerns that Taiwan might follow in Ukraine’s footsteps, Ma wrote. Instead, it seems to think it could
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
RSS