Taipei police yesterday said they are examining new information about the death of a British national whose Taiwanese widow is under investigation for the suspected poisoning of an Australian student in Taiwan last year.
The case relates to an incident in April last year, in which Alex Shorey, a 24-year-old Australian exchange student, was hospitalized in Taipei for what was later determined to be poisoning by the rodenticide superwarfarin.
During questioning, Shorey’s Taiwanese girlfriend, surnamed Yang (楊), admitted mixing rat poison into a glass of juice, but denied that she had intentionally poisoned him, saying that she had intended to drink it herself.
Photo: Taipei Times
Shorey moved back to Australia on May 3 last year, while Yang was referred to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office earlier this year to be investigated on suspicion of aggravated assault.
However, a new lead in the case came to light in January, when a British national came to Taiwan looking for information about his older brother, who had moved to Taiwan with his wife several years earlier and subsequently lost contact with his family.
Using the information provided by the man, police discovered that his brother had been married to Yang, but had died in January last year, just months before Shorey was poisoned, police said.
Yang’s husband died with symptoms of poisoning similar to those experienced by Shorey, police said, leading them to notify prosecutors that the cases were possibly connected.
Local news reports said that doctors who treated the British man suspected that he might have ingested rat poison, but released his body to Yang without ordering a forensic autopsy.
Yang had the body cremated.
Following the revelations, prosecutors asked the Taipei Police Department’s Zhongshan Precinct to open an investigation into the man’s death.
The precinct yesterday said it had conducted searches in connection with the case earlier this month.
Yang has not yet been charged in either case.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Taiwan on Friday said a New Zealand hamburger restaurant has apologized for a racist remark to a Taiwanese customer after reports that it had first apologized to China sparked outrage in Taiwan. An image posted on Threads by a Taiwanese who ate at Fergburger in Queenstown showed that their receipt dated Sunday last week included the words “Ching Chang,” a racial slur. The Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch in a statement on Thursday said it had received and accepted an apology from the restaurant over the incident. The comment triggered an online furor among Taiwanese who saw it as an insult to the
RSS