The head of a Tainan temple and seven others were indicted on Friday by prosecutors investigating gun attacks on a campaign headquarters and a business run by a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) official in November last year.
Six of the people who were indicted — Kung Hsiang-chih (孔祥志), Yang Chan-hua (楊展華), Lee Chi-han (李奇漢), Kuo Chien-chang (郭建彰), Tsai Chin-lang (蔡金郎) and Hsieh Chun-cheng (謝俊誠) — were detained, while Wang Wen-tsung (王文宗), chairman of Cihji Temple in Tainan’s Syuejia District (學甲), was released on NT$700,000 bail, the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office said.
An eighth suspect — Hung Cheng-chun (洪政軍), who was extradited from China in February — is serving a nine-year prison sentence for a separate firearms offense.
Photo: Wang Chieh, Taipei Times
All eight had been indicted over their alleged involvement in twin attacks on the campaign headquarters of Hsieh Shu-fan (謝舒凡) and a business belonging to former DPP Central Executive Committee member Kuo Tsai-chin (郭再欽) in the run-up to last year’s local elections.
On Nov. 10 last year, police responding to a 3am report of exploding firecrackers arrived to find a steel shutter on Hsieh Shu-fan’s campaign headquarters in Syuejia riddled with about 30 bullet holes.
Surveillance footage recovered by police showed a man — who prosecutors identified as Kung — firing shots from a gun into Hsieh Shu-fan’s office before departing on a scooter.
The same person had shot up a technology firm run by Kuo Tsai-chin shortly before arriving at Hsieh Shu-fan’s campaign headquarters, prosecutors said.
Neither location was occupied at the time of the shootings and no injuries were reported.
Hsieh Shu-fan, a DPP candidate whose father is former independent Tainan city councilor Hsieh Tsai-wang (謝財旺), was elected to the Tainan City Council on Nov. 26.
Kung, a Syuejia resident with a criminal record, was tracked down in China and extradited to Taiwan in February along with Hung.
Prosecutors said that Wang and Hung, a close associate of the temple chairman, masterminded the shootings and recruited Kung to carry them out.
Wang and Hung have denied involvement in the shootings.
The five others indicted on Friday have been accused of managing other tasks, such as supplying the MP5 gun allegedly used in the attack and providing Kung with the scooter.
Hung and Kung, who prosecutors said were smuggled into China after fleeing Taiwan by boat in November last year, were arrested by Chinese police in Quanzhou on Jan. 18.
Prosecutors said that Wang subsidized Hung during the latter’s time in hiding, saying that the temple boss visited China in December last year and in January to meet with him.
The motives behind the shootings were still being investigated, prosecutors said, adding that there are other potential indictments in the case.
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
Twenty-four Republican members of the US House of Representatives yesterday introduced a concurrent resolution calling on the US government to abolish the “one China” policy and restore formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Led by US representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Perry, the resolution calls for not only re-establishing formal relations, but also urges the US Trade Representative to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan and for US officials to advocate for Taiwan’s full membership in the UN and other international organizations. In a news release announcing the resolution, Tiffany, who represents a Wisconsin district, called the “one China” policy “outdated, counterproductive
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry
RSS