The body of one of the four prisoners that escaped from Taitung's Taiyuan Vocational Training Institute (
Meanwhile, Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (
After checking fingerprints, police confirmed yesterday evening that the dead man was 33-year-old Chen Yung-sung (
Justice ministry officials speculated that Chen might have been washed away by the river after falling off the riverbank or while trying to cross the river to flee to mountain areas.
They suspected, if that that were the case, some or all of the other three might also have fallen into the river, swollen by rains from Typhoon Bilis.
The justice minister's inspection tour of the Taitung facility where the jailbreak occurred was thwarted by the temporary closure of the Taitung airport by heavy rain and strong winds. Chen's plane circled Taitung but eventually returned to Taipei, unable to land.
Chen ruled out disciplinary action against officials until a formal investigative report was complete.
He said that investigations by both the Taitung District Prosecutors' Office and the ministry's ad-hoc investigating force were continuing, but added that there must have been official negligence on the part of prison staff.
"According to prison regulations, patrols of cellblocks should have been conducted every 15 minutes but it seems that in this case the regulations were not obeyed," he said. "The question of why patrols were not carried out on time is a focus of our investigations," he said
The cell in which the four inmates had been confined was found empty at around 11:05pm on Tuesday night. It was estimated that the four escaped between 10:30pm and 11:00pm.
Chen also hinted that the country's correctional institutions may be in the grip of a common lack of discipline.
"Someone in the ministry told me yesterday that during the past three years the [management of] correction facilities has been lax."
"If that is so, prison staff might tend to neglect their duties. Inevitably such situations will cause problems," he said, adding that an urgent measure to prevent further similar incidents was to enhance prison security.
"The shortage of prison staff is a problem that cannot be solved easily due to budgetary shortages, but some improvements to facilities can be made without too much expenditure."
He said, for example, that had the security gate through which the four passed been made of railings rather than of a single steel plate, the gate could have been closed.
The security gate had been left partially open, enabling the prisoners to pass through to an area of the prison that was less secure to make their escape.
Prison authorities said they had left the opening for fear that the strong wind would blow the gate down.
Chen also said he wished to test the truth of this "justification" on the part of prison staff.
In addition to inspecting the prison, Chen said, another purpose of his intended tour was to express his appreciation to the Taitung County Police Bureau (
Three Control Yuan members have also started an investigation into the escape.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has
China is mischaracterizing UN Resolution 2758 for its own interests by conflating it with its “one China” principle, US Deputy Assistant Secretary for China and Taiwan Mark Lambert said on Monday. Speaking at a seminar held by the German Marshall Fund, Lambert called for support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the international community at a time when China is increasingly misusing Resolution 2758. The resolution had a clear impact when it changed who occupied the China seat at the UN, Lambert said. “Today, however, the PRC [People’s Republic of China] increasingly mischaracterizes and misuses Resolution 2758 to serve its own interests,” Lambert said. “Beijing