Seven student leaders of the Sunflower movement and an academic voluntarily reported to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office to submit to prosecutorial interviews yesterday.
Student leader Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) and 25 other students had been informed that they had to go the Taipei Police Department at 4pm yesterday for questioning.
However, instead, seven of the movement’s leaders and Academia Sinica associate research law fellow Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) went to the District Prosecutors’ Office at 1:30pm yesterday asking to be questioned by prosecutors directly.
Photo: CNA
Lawyer Wellington Koo (顧立雄) and his legal team accompanied the group of eight: Huang Kuo-chang, Lin, Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷), Dennis Wei (魏揚), Huang Yu-fen (黃郁芬), Chou Fu-i (周馥儀) and two other students.
“We have come to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office today to make known our position, which is that we will face any investigation honestly and fearlessly, determined to take responsibility for our actions,” Wei said in a statement on behalf of the students.
“Based on the principle of public disobedience, we students took substantial action to uphold the Constitution and our democracy, which are in peril. We will shoulder any due legal responsibility and will not seek to avoid any political, historical or social responsibility,” he added.
When the group arrived, the District Prosecutors’ Office sent eight prosecutors to conduct one-on-one interviews with them that lasted about 90 minutes.
“As the students’ attorney, I believe they are innocent,” Koo said, adding that the prosecutors said they might summon the seven again after reviewing the evidence gathered.
The students, who led the occupation of the Legislative Yuan on March 18 and reportedly also the storming of the Executive Yuan on March 23, face charges of obstructing an officer in the performance of their duties; destruction, abandonment and damage of property; and breaking and entering.
HEATED TRAFFIC: As Beijing holds naval drills near Taiwan, the Ministry of National Defense said it had a full grasp of the situation and would handle it ‘appropriately’ A Chinese carrier group exercising near Taiwan is part of what are to be regular drills, the Chinese navy said in a statement late on Monday, further escalating tensions between Taipei and Beijing. The group, including the aircraft carrier Liaoning, was conducting “routine” drills in the waters around Taiwan, a move to “enhance its capability to safeguard national sovereignty, safety and development interests,” the statement said. “Similar exercises will be conducted regularly,” it said, without elaborating. The statement came after the Ministry of National Defense earlier on Monday issued a statement regarding a rise in the number of incursions by Chinese jets into
AIMED AT TAIWAN? Institute for National Defense and Security Research research fellow Ou Si-fu said chips can be ‘bought off the shelf’ and then used in weapons The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday said that chips from Taiwanese semiconductor companies were not making their way into Chinese missiles “to the best of our knowledge.” A report in yesterday’s Washington Post alleged that a Chinese company named Phytium Technology Co (飛騰) used chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), along with US software, in advanced Chinese military systems. “TSMC has long placed strict controls on their chips. The export of high-tech products from Taiwan is also highly regulated,” Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) said. “According to our understanding, none of the end uses for those products
NO TIME: The driver tried to apply the brakes when he saw the truck, but the train did not have time to come to a full stop, an investigation report said The crane truck that caused last week’s fatal train accident had slid onto the tracks about one-and-a-half minutes before it was struck, the Taiwan Transportation Safety Board said yesterday. The board had launched an investigation into the derailment, which killed 50 people and injured 211 people, making it the nation’s most devastating railway accident in decades. Carrying 494 passengers and four Taiwan Railways Administration personnel, the southbound express train to Taitung hit the truck as it was about to enter the Cingshuei Tunnel (清水隧道) in Hualien’s Sioulin Township (秀林). The train derailed following the collision, with the left side of the eighth
TAROKO INCIDENT: The committee would regulate how public donations for victims of Friday’s train accident, which have exceeded NT$60 million, would be used The government has collected about NT$60 million (US$2.1 million) in donations through Line Pay and convenience stores for victims of last week’s fatal train accident and plans to establish an oversight committee to determine how the funds should be used to help them, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said yesterday. The accident occurred at 9:28am on Friday, when a southbound Taroko Express train traveling from New Taipei City to Taitung hit a crane truck that had slid down a hill from a nearby construction site onto the rails as the train was about to enter the Cingshuei Tunnel