The Ministry of Justice yesterday said it would today make a request to the Swiss government to arrest and repatriate British fugitive Zain Dean, who fled Taiwan in August last year on someone else’s passport.
Deputy Minister of Justice Chen Shou-huang (陳守煌) made the remark last night after citing information obtained from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that its representative offices overseas reported that Dean had absconded to Switzerland.
The ministry earlier yesterday said it has notified all of its representative offices to work with their host nations in an effort to track down Dean.
Taiwan hopes to work with the government of whichever country Dean is found in to get him sent back to Taipei to serve his four-year prison term, ministry spokesperson Steve Hsia (夏季昌) said.
Hsia said Taiwan’s representative office in the UK has also been working closely with British government agencies.
The office said on Tuesday that it had rejected conditions set by Dean for him to return to Taiwan.
Representative to the UK Shen Lyu-shun (沈呂巡) said the office received an e-mail from Dean in which he said he would only be willing to return on four conditions: a retrial, having previously unreleased video evidence presented in court, having human rights observers present at the new trial and for him to be free of discrimination based on his skin color. He is of South Asian descent.
Dean was convicted in July last year of the death of a newspaper deliveryman in Taipei in March 2010 while allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol.
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