The High Prosecutors’ Office upheld a plea deal deferring the prosecution of two conscripts formerly garrisoned in New Taipei City who faked their marriage to get two weeks of marital leave.
On July 13, two men surnamed Yen (顏) and Chang (張), who were ranked private second class and based at the Military Police Training Center in New Taipei City’s Wugu District (五股), separately registered for marriage at the district office in Taipei’s Nangang District (南港), less than two months after their induction, the High Prosecutors’ Office said on Thursday.
The ruse was exposed a day after their marriage, when an officer visited them at their residence of record, as the officer was suspicious that the pair had not been truthful about their relationship, it said.
Photo courtesy of the New Taipei City Government
The district prosecutor in charge was lenient, as the duo admitted their guilt at their pretrial hearing and expressed remorse, it said.
Yen and Chang received a year of deferred prosecution and were ordered to pay a fine of NT$30,000 each, it said, adding that the district prosecutor then handed the case to the High Prosecutors’ Office for consideration as protocol demands.
The High Prosecutors’ Office allowed the prosecution to be deferred, it said.
The pair completed their military draft without further incident and have since returned home, a source familiar with the matter said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Cases of malingering have occurred following the reinstatement of military conscription. In another case, a New Taipei City resident surnamed Wang (王) was convicted of pretending to have influenza and forged a doctor’s note last year.
Wang was sentenced to three months in prison commutable to a NT$90,000 fine, court documents showed.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its