The New Taipei City District Court has sentenced a man to five months in jail for allegedly putting rat poison in a water storage tank over a disagreement with a tenant, causing illness and skin rashes to a family.
The man, surnamed Hung (洪), can pay a fine in lieu of jail time, the court said.
The incident took place in August 2020, when building resident Yang (楊) and his family experienced swelling, red skin, rashes and other conditions, the ruling said.
Photo: Taipei Times file
The family also said that the water had an odd smell and found green-blue particles floating inside their water storage tank, it said.
Yang reported the incident to police, and lab testing found that the particles contained the ingredients of rat poison.
About a week later, Hung attempted to poison the water again, but was unable to due to a lock, the ruling said.
Yang’s wife saw Hung on the camera feed and ran to the roof to confront him, and caught him pouring the contents of a plastic bottle over the side of the building, it said.
Police gathered some of the discarded contents, which lab tests confirmed to contain the components of rat poison, it said.
At a hearing, Hung said he had poisoned the tank over a personal dispute with Yang, who had served as the chairman of the building’s management committee.
Hung said he had disagreements and filed complaints over the use of public space in the building, and tried to resolve the problems with Yang, but did not get the results he wanted.
He said he also resented that Yang “monopolized” the chairman position for more than two decades.
Hung said that he had put “fertilizer materials” into the tank to “teach a lesson” to Yang.
The court found Hung guilty of “causing injury to others,” based on surveillance camera footage, eyewitness testimony, police statements and firsthand accounts from police.
The court rejected prosecutors’ charge of “placing poisonous or harmful substances in water for public use,” which carried a more severe punishment, as the tank was privately owned and not a communal water source for the whole building, the ruling said.
Yang’s daughter-in-law said that the sentence was too lenient and the family would consider appealing the ruling.
“The incident made all six members of our family sick. We still suffer from the fear that the water tank could be contaminated by rat poison,” she said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and