Two men arrested over an incident in which suitcases loaded with gasoline were planted on a high-speed train and near a lawmaker’s office have been released without charges, police said yesterday, adding that one of the devices could have emitted a cloud of poisonous gas.
The duo, brothers identified only by their surname Lai (賴), were arrested at their home in Greater Taichung on Sunday, but were released early yesterday morning after questioning, police said.
A police officer, who asked not to be named, said the pair had been ruled out as possible suspects.
Minister of the Interior Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源) said he expected further arrests soon.
“My understanding is that police have collected sufficient information on the suspects. The police should be able to catch them soon,” Lee told reporters.
The incident happened on Friday, when two unattended suitcases were found on a high-speed rail train bound for Taipei.
Two other suitcases, also containing gasoline, were found outside Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lu Chia-chen’s (盧嘉辰) office in New Taipei City (新北市).
After discovering the two suitcases on the train, Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC, 台灣高鐵) evacuated 600 passengers at Taoyuan Station and police removed the cases for investigation.
Officers searched the train for evidence and the platform for trains bound for Taipei was temporarily closed during the removal of the suitcases, the company said.
It said it had not received any threats prior to the incident.
A middle-aged man dressed in police rain gear is suspected of planting explosives outside Lu’s office, according to video footage released by the legislator’s office on Sunday.
Meanwhile, prosecutors said they had completed an analysis of the explosive devices found on the train and outside Lu’s office, and said that had they gone off, the devices would have emitted poison gas.
The devices were connected to materials with an alarm clock, using a wire as a conduit.
Police said the perpetrators may have attempted to ignite the gasoline to cause the gas to explode. The investigation also found that while the way the devices were made was nearly identical, the chemical compounds used in them were different. The device at Lu’s office was a simple explosive device.
The task force investigating the case said it had found an SUV it believed had been used by the suspects at a privately owned parking lot near Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, adding that surveillance cameras at the parking lot had also recorded images of what seemed to be two men. The task force said the pair appeared to change clothes before they arrived at the airport on Friday night and that they had told the parking attendant they would return on April 19.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS