A Chinese fishing boat captain has been sentenced to a seven-month prison term, and required to pay compensation of NT$6.5 million (US$209,508) for illegal poaching inside Taiwan’s territorial waters and ramming Taiwanese coast guard cutter in September last year.
The ruling by the Hsinchu District Court last week identified Cai Wenliang (蔡文良)from China’s Fujian Province as captain in charge of the vessel, which had installed a number of sharpened metal rods sticking out from the vessel’s side, dubbed a “hedgehog ship,” for its similarity to the quills of the spiny mammal.
The court found Cai guilty of contravening the Immigration Act (入出國及移民法), illegal intrusion into Taiwan’s territorial waters and violating the Criminal Code, on “Offenses of Obstructing an Officer in Discharge of Duties” (妨害公務執行罪), and was handed a seven-month sentence, though the judge permitted him can commute to a fine payment.
Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration
The investigation’s findings said that Cai captained the fishing boat Min Min Yu No. 61212 from Fujian’s coastal harbor of Shishi City with 16 crew members aboard the boat, which sailed through Taiwan Strait to within 11 nautical miles northwest of Hsinchu County and was seen casting trawling nets for illegal fishing, on Sept. 25 last year.
The ship intruded into Taiwan’s marine territory, alerting a Coast Guard Administration (CGA) cutter to move in and to issue a warning, which discovered that there were multiple metal rods sticking out on both the vessel’s starboard and port decks, with the aim of preventing the cutter from closing in.
The CGA cutter maneuvered in an attempt to board the vessel, but Cai refused to cooperate and rammed the cutter with his boat several times, with the sharped metal rods bashing into the cutter’s hull, the ruling said.
“It posed serious danger to Coast Guard cutter members who could have been injured by the metal rods, and could have fallen into the sea when the collision took place,” it said.
Afterwards, an examination found that the cutter had parts of its hull distorted, cracked and wa breaking apart, rendering it unusable and needing repairs estimated at NT$6.5 million, which the Chinese ship owner paid later on in compensation through legal negotiation.
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