Gang leader will stay put

Taipei District Court ruled yesterday that Yang Kuang-nan (楊光南), the head of the "Four Seas Gang" (四海幫) should be detained at the Taipei Detention Center, while police continued to hope that Yang might throw light on two high-profile murder cases.

Yang was captured on Wednesday in the transit lounge at Macau's airport following his expulsion from China. He was then repatriated to Taiwan.

Yang, blacklisted by Chinese authorities, was arrested in Shanghai in early November.

Questioning Yang yesterday, police hoped to elicit the truth behind two unsolved murders.

The first was the slaying in January 1996 of the former head of the Four Seas Gang, Chen Yung-ho (陳永和), who was shot dead in a Taipei restaurant. The second murder was the September, 1998 killing of Huang Nai-hsuan (黃乃宣), deputy general manager of Yuan Ta Securities.

While media reports have suggested that Yang may know the truth behind the two cases, the police said yesterday that Yang denied having any knowledge of the killings.

Prosecutors said yesterday that Yang denied that he was the leader of the Four Seas Gang, but rather its second in command. However, prosecutors believe that Yang was the real head of the organization.

Yang could be prosecuted for involvement in a criminal organization -- an offense punishable by imprisonment of three to 10 years under the Organized Crime Prevention Act (組織犯罪防制條例). Yang has been held under the Criminal Investigation Bureau's Chihping anti-gangster program (治平專案).

Yang's detention in Taipei is a blow to prosecutors who had earlier sought his detention at a high security facility on Green Island off the southeast coast of Taiwan.

The justice ministry's so-called "Green Island Policy" -- sending those arrested under the Chihping program to the remote detention site -- started in 1996 and became a symbol of the government's resolution to fight "black gold."

The main thrust of the policy was that holding particularly powerful gangsters on Green Island could effectively prevent them from exercising their influence outside prison walls.

The policy has been upheld by successive justice ministers, including current Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (陳定南).

However, it has also been a controversial policy and has not been supported by many judges.

Since the Criminal Code was amended in December 1997 to take away prosecutors' powers to detain suspects, very few judges have approved prosecutors' recommendations to send suspects to Green Island instead of local detention houses.

Opponents of the Green Island Policy argue that it is in conflict with the principle of jurisdiction stipulated in the Criminal Code and may infringe on suspects' rights. They also argued it is a waste of government money.

Currently, there are no suspects being held at the Green Island detention center as a result of the Chihping program. The last time a Chihping suspect was sent there was in February.

However, Chen Ming-kuang (陳明光), the divisional head prosecutor overseeing Yang's case, said he believed it was necessary for Yang to be held there.