Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Central Committee member Sean Lien (連勝文) yesterday cast doubt on the testimony of the man who is alleged to have shot him in the face on the eve of last November’s special municipality elections.
The Banciao District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday indicted the suspect, Lin Cheng-wei (林正偉), for manslaughter, attempted murder and other charges. Lin allegedly planned to shoot then-candidate for New Taipei City (新北市) councilor Chen Hung-yuan (陳鴻源), of the KMT over an alleged land dispute with Chen’s family.
In his initial testimony, Lin claimed the shooting was a case of mistaken identity, prosecutors said. However, he has since retracted that statement and now claims he fired at Lien because the latter had attempted to knock his hand aside.
The single bullet that was fired traversed Lien’s cheek and exited through his right temple, before hitting 29-year-old Huang Yun-sheng (黃運聖), a bystander who later died on his way to hospital.
Lien, Chen, the pan-blue and the pan-green camps have all said that the prosecutors’ conclusions were unacceptable and leave too many questions unanswered.
On Friday, Lien renewed his call on the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office to reopen the investigation.
The Democratic Progressive Party said it would continue to press its demand for a recall of the mayoral elections in Taipei City, New Taipei City and Greater Taichung.
Approached for comment in Taipei yesterday, Lien, who was still wearing bandages on his wounds, said the media and public had doubts about the conclusions reached by the investigation and wanted answers to the many questions surrounding the case.
Lien said the new version of Lin’s story made little sense because Lin already passed a lie-detector test regarding his initial statement.
“I’m curious whether his previous testimony still stands,” he said.
Asked whether he was upset when prosecutors made the footage of the shooting public, Lien said the damage was already done and he believed many people found the results of the investigation unsatisfactory.
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