The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a life sentence handed down to an Israeli-American for the 2018 murder and dismemberment of a Canadian citizen on the banks of the Sindian River (新店溪).
The court dismissed Oren Shlomo Mayer’s appeal and concluded that there was nothing objectionable in the High Court’s ruling in January, which upheld the New Taipei City District Court’s conviction of Mayer and three others last year in connection with the murder.
According to the verdict, Mayer, who has dual citizenship in Israel and the US, killed Canadian Sanjay Ryan Ramgahan because he suspected that Ramgahan had informed police about an illicit drug trade in which he and the three accomplices were involved.
In August 2018, Mayer met Ramgahan at a riverside park in New Taipei City’s Yonghe District (永和), where they were later joined by one of the accomplices, American Ewart Bent, it said.
American Jason Hobbie and Taiwanese-Canadian Wu Hsuan (吳宣) set off fireworks on the opposite side of the river to distract Ramgahan, while also acting as lookouts, it said.
Mayer and Bent took turns strangling Ramgahan with a chainsaw chain before Mayer cut his throat with a machete. Mayer and Bent dismembered his body and disposed of the body parts and tools in the Sindian River, the court said.
Ramgahan’s body parts were found in a riverside park under Zhongzheng Bridge in Yonghe on Aug. 22, 2018.
Mayer fled Taiwan but was found two weeks later in the Philippines, from where he was extradited, while the others were arrested later that year.
In February 2020, the district court found all four guilty, sentencing Mayer to life in prison and Bent to 12 years and six months in jail. Hobbie and Wu were sentenced to 18 months and six months in jail respectively for aiding in the crime.
The three filed appeals against the convictions, but did not challenge the decision made by the High Court upholding the original ruling.
All four men had been acquitted on money laundering charges connected to the prosecutors’ allegations that they had sold cannabis.
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