The shooting of Sean Lien (連勝文) last month was not orchestrated by him, but the motive remains unclear, the Banciao District Prosecutors Office said yesterday.
Office spokeswoman Chen Cheng-fen (陳正芬) told a press conference that investigators have gathered a huge volume of evidence, including the footage from surveillance cameras near the scene of the shooting as well as from two media outlets, the suspect’s telephone records and recent bank transactions by nine people.
Chen was reporting on the progress of the investigation, following recent complaints that it was moving too slowly.
“The possibility that the shooting incident may have been orchestrated by the victim himself has been completely eliminated,” Chen said.
Sean Lien, one of former vice president Lien Chan’s (連戰) sons, was shot in the face at a campaign rally in Taipei County on Nov. 26, the eve of the special municipality elections.
An alleged ganster, Lin Cheng-wei (林正偉) was arrested on the spot.
A preliminary investigation confirmed that Lin shot Lien in the face at close range, Chen said.
However, “we are still trying to determine the gunman’s motive and where he obtained the weapon,” she said.
Investigators have also confirmed the bullet that struck Lien in the left cheek and exited near his right temple was the same one that killed bystander Huang Yun-sheng (黃運聖), she said.
“We can confirm that there was one gun, one bullet, one death and one injury,” Chen said, declining to say whether investigators thought the gunman had been hired by a criminal gang.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Chun-yee (李俊毅) called the press conference pointless, saying it offered no new information.
DPP Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) said the press conference might have been called to “endorse a certain political power’s perspective.”
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