Police praised the courage and swift reactions of Taipei County Council Speaker Hsu Tsai-en (許再恩) after he disarmed two armed kidnappers yesterday morning.
"Hsu's courage and promptness of action helped us to locate the suspects quickly and prevented an even more serious in-cident," said Huang Chen-huan (黃振煥), chief of the Taipei County Police Department's Hsintien Precinct.
Police said two men arrived at the Hsintien apartment building where the 60-year-old Hsu lives around 9:40am, just as Hsu was walking out of the building.
One of the men had a knife and the other was armed with a pistol, according to police, who say the pair threatened Hsu and ordered him to accompany them.
Hsu immediately lashed out at the pair and was promptly joined in the fray by his driver Chang Ya-sun (
Hsu called the police, who arrested two men 10 minutes later in a nearby dead-end alley.
Police identified the suspects as Huang Shao-ping (
Police say both men were bruised, while Hsu and Chang were uninjured.
"Huang and Liu told us that they were planning to extort a NT$5 million ransom because they needed money. They knew that Hsu was the council speaker but they did not know him personally and had never had a dispute with him," said Huang Chen-huan.
"They told us that they had been planning the kidnapping for two weeks and that nobody else is involved," the police officer said. "We are continuing to investigate the possibility of other suspects."
Police said the two men had told them that they planned to escape by having Hsu's driver drive all four of them away in Hsu's car.
Hsu held a short press conference at the Taipei County Council later in the day. He said that he had never been threatened before and did not believe that he had ever offended anybody.
"They suddenly showed up with their weapons. The guy with the pistol asked me to go with them," said Hsu.
"Without a second thought, I immediately pushed aside his hand which was holding the pistol and began to fight with them. My driver joined the fight and helped me snatch their weapons."
Hsu said that he was completely unscathed by the incident, both physically and mentally.
"Although I'm 60 years old, I exercise all the time and try to keep myself in good shape," he said. "But if somebody wants to attack me, I will try to knock him down before he strikes. That's my strategy and I'm glad it worked this first time."
Hsu, a KMT member, has been the speaker of Taipei County Council for 12 years.
The two suspects remained in police custody at press time last night, but had not been charged.
Meanwhile, National Police Administration Director General Wang Chin-wang (
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