Police announced yesterday that a Tainan-based ecstasy dealer was the maker of the two homemade bullets used in the shooting of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) on March 19.
Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) Commissioner Hou You-yi (侯友宜) identified the suspect as Tang Shou-yi (唐守義) during a press conference called by the Supreme Prosecutors' Office.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
"It is him. We are very sure about that," Hou said. "The evidence says it all."
The discovery of the bulletmaker is the biggest breakthrough yet in the assassination probe.
Hou said Tang first came to investigators' attention on Aug. 15, when he was arrested by Kaohsiung police during an illegal arms sale.
On Oct. 12, Tainan Prosecutor Wang San-jung (王森榮) led a team of police officers on a raid of Tang's residence, where he reportedly produced illegal weapons.
During the raid investigators discovered a blueprint of a homemade bullet. They said the drawing exactly matched the two bullets from the shooting.
Wang's request that Tang be detained was immediately granted by judges. He remains in custody.
Hou said the unusual structure of the homemade bullets that Tang sold matched those used during the assassination attempt, including the distinctive tool and machine marks.
The CIB displayed two pictures at the press conference: a close-up shot of the two bullets and a photo of the blueprint.
"We wanted to avoid any possibility that the suspect might destroy evidence. That is why we held back the photos until today," Hou said.
Investigators discovered that another maker of homemade bullets and guns, Chang Hsin-chieh (張新潔), had worked with Tang in the past. Chang died of a drug overdose on June 27 last year.
Officials said to make their bullets, Tang and Chang would buy copper or lead weights used by fishermen at tackle shops and melt the weights to fill the molds they had made.
To avoid attracting attention, the molds did not resemble bullets. The molded pieces were then cut and shaped into bullets.
The gunpowder used in the bullets came from toy caps sold at toy and stationary stores.
Officials said that to make guns, Tang and Chang would buy toy pistols and then refine or replace the bores and barrels.
The CIB's investigation showed that Tang and Chang had produced more than 40 pistols and 1,000 bullets since January last year.
Hou said Tang had been careful to try to cover his tracks.
"He stopped producing the kind of bullets used during the shooting but otherwise his business was not interrupted by the case," Hou said.
"The most difficult part now is to find out who bought the bullets from them. They had a lot of clients so it will take time for us to search for them," Hou said.
CIB officers are still screening Tang's cellphone records going back to January last year in the hopes of identifying the March 19 shooter.
"We are closingr in on the end of our investigation since we started from zero," Hou said. "As usual, we are quite confident that we will close the case soon."
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS