Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Lee Hsin (李新) yesterday morning died after falling from a high-rise apartment in an apparent suicide, police and investigators said.
At about 5am, Lee, 64, plunged from his ex-wife’s 11th-floor residence in a residential complex on Taipei’s Anhe Road.
A resident of the unit below said he heard a noise and looked outside to see Lee standing on a ledge with his hands on the railing, eyes looking down.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
“I asked him: ‘What are you doing out there?’ Then he just jumped,” the neighbor said.
Paramedics found Lee dead at the scene.
Police closed down the area to collect evidence and escorted Lee’s ex-wife, who was in shock, to Cathay General Hospital for treatment.
Lee might have been depressed by a chronic illness and by his girlfriend having asked to live separately from him, a source said on condition of anonymity.
KMT Taipei City Council caucus secretary-general Chen Yung-te (陳永德) said Lee had attempted suicide on Sept. 17, the night before the city council session began.
Lee took “50 or 60 sleeping pills” and was sent to a hospital, which discharged him the next day, Chen said.
The next day he went to work and attended a party caucus meeting, but appeared “sallow,” he added.
“He talked about his health repeatedly and did not seem to be his normal self,” Chen said.
KMT Taipei City Councilor Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) said Lee had shingles, but she did not expect him to kill himself.
She said that on Wednesday night she gave Lee a bill on preschool education to cosign, adding that he told her: “It is high time this gets done.”
Lee was a candidate in this month’s KMT Central Committee election, but had said he might have to withdraw due to stress and poor health, Wang said.
“Running for a seat on the central committee is not something you join and do not finish, but my understanding is that he was suffering physically,” she said.
KMT Legislator Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀) said she would remember Lee Hsin as a brave and honest man.
“Lee Hsin’s dedication to the city and the nation will not be forgotten. I hope his family will take care of themselves and I am grateful to have worked with him,” Lee Yen-hsiu said.
Lee Hsin did not leave a note behind prior to his apparent suicide, sources said.
New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (郁慕明) said Lee Hsin’s ailing health might have contributed to his suicide, as he had complained about it.
Yok said that Lee Hsin, who was his assistant when Yok was a lawmaker, had reached out to him in the past few days, but he was too busy to schedule an appointment.
He said he regrets not having talked to Lee Hsin before his death, as Lee Hsin had supported him 29 years ago during a difficult period of chemotherapy.
“His death causes me great sadness and regret,” Yok said. “He did not spell things out to me at the time. He only said: ‘My health has been extremely poor lately.’”
“We hope his family will get through this,” he added.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the