Taipei prosecutors said yesterday they might charge Taipei police officers with concealment of offences, destruction of evidence and leaking confidential information while handling a case of alleged assault involving singer-actress Makiyo and a Japanese friend.
Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office spokesman Huang Mo-hsin (黃謀信) said yesterday that prosecutors would soon question Xinyi precinct police officers Wu Teng-chieh (吳登傑) and Yeh Hung-sheng (葉鴻昇), who were in charge of Makiyo’s case, but apparently failed to include an important video clip in the evidence package given to prosecutors on Feb. 3.
Their supervisors would also be questioned, Huang added.
The video clip, taken by a taxi driver using a dashboard camera in his car, seems to show Makiyo shouting at a taxi driver and kicking him before being stopped by her Japanese friend, Takateru Tomoyori.
Xinyi precinct did not present the video clip to the prosecutors until the prosecutors saw the footage on TV on Wednesday and demanded the tape from the department, prosecutors said.
According to Hung, head of Xinyi precinct’s Sanchangli police station, Yang Kuo-chang (楊國昌) had admitted to the Taipei Police Station that he gave the video clip to an ETTV reporter and that footage taken from it was broadcast on TV.
Yang would face an investigation to determine if he leaked confidential information, Huang said.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday announced it had indicted Makiyo and Tomoyori on charges of assault and asked for four and six years imprisonment respectively, over the alleged beating of the taxi driver on Feb. 2.
The incident reportedly occurred after the taxi driver, surnamed Lin (林), asked Tomoyori and the other passengers to fasten their seatbelts, which they allegedly refused to do. They then allegedly assaulted the taxi driver.
Lin, who sustained serious head injuries, two fractured ribs and a concussion, was still in hospital yesterday.
Makiyo, a Taiwan-based entertainer born to a Japanese father and Taiwanese mother, and Tomoyori have been prohibited from leaving the country.
Separately yesterday, Minister of the Interior Lee Hong-yun (李鴻源) said the police had been careless in their handling of the high-profile assault case.
“Honestly speaking, the police made some clear errors in processing the case,” Lee said, adding that the police made a “serious mistake” by waiting six days before submitting a video clip of the incident.
Describing the incident as “regretful,” Lee said there were some lessons to be learned, including the wrongfulness of violence and heavy drinking.
To avoid such mistakes from happening again, he urged more on-the-job training for police officers.
He also called for the enforcement of standard operating procedures in the police force.
Additional reporting by CNA
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
RSS