The Taipei District Court yesterday rejected the prosecution's request to detain a former agent of the Investigation Bureau who was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly sending threatening mails to the first family and a number of legislators and government officials.
Yang Ching-hai (楊清海), 58, was released last night on NT$100,000 bail. He was arrested on Tuesday at his residence in Taipei County, where police also found two pistols and 45 bullets.
Police said that Yang had sent a postcard threatening to sexually assault President Chen Shui-bian's (
Taipei District Prosecutors' Office spokesman Lin Ching-tsun (
Yang's girlfriend, Ting Yi-chih (
Lin said Yang and Ting would be charged with threatening and obstructing a person's safety. Yang would also be charged with violating the Guns, Explosives and Knives Control Act.
Police said that in addition to threatening the first family, since 2005 Yang had also sent threatening letters to Ministry of Education Secretary-General Chuang Kuo-rong (莊國榮) and more than 30 legislators, elected officials and government officials.
They said Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (
Approached by reporters on his way from a jail in Taipei to the prosecutors' office, Yang denied threatening the president, but acknowledged having sent the parcels containing bullets.
"I just wanted lawmakers to do more for the public," he said. "Lawmakers and media are the two sources of chaos in society."
The bureau said in a statement on Tuesday that Yang left his job at the bureau in 1988 and that it had no information about his activities since that time.
Prosecutors said late last night they had filed an appeal for Yang's detention.
Additional reporting by CNA and AP
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
RSS