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Lawmaker is charged with inciting assault, extortion

Anatomy of the case: * Lin Ruey-tou is charged with prompting an assistant to assault and extort NT$1 million from the victim. * The victim, Lo Ming-wen, claims that he and Lin's assistant, Wu Kuo-chung, mediated a dispute and could not agree on a fair split of the NT$3 million reward. He claims that Wu then had him abducted and beaten by about 20 men. * Lin denies the charges and says that Wu is not his assistant, but just a friendly voter.

Independent lawmaker Lin Ruey-tou (林瑞圖) was yesterday charged with asking an assistant to commit assault in an attempt to extort NT$1 million from the victim.

Lin, however, denied any involvement in the case, saying that the attacker, Wu Kuo-chung (吳國中), was not his assistant but only a voter who had contacted him for help a few months ago.

Wu was remanded for prosecution by the police yesterday on charges of hampering personal freedom and inflicting bodily injury upon the victim, Lo Ming-wen (羅明文).

According to police, the incident happened Sunday afternoon after negotiations between Wu and Lo over the alleged extortion broke down. The two both have a background of involvement with organized crime.

Lo and Wu are said to have mediated a dispute between two shareholders of a restaurant located in Shihlin, Taipei, for which they were paid an NT$3 million reward, but they failed to reach an agreement on how to share the money, police said.

Lo told the police that Wu threatened him and demanded that he pay him NT$1 million during their meeting at the restaurant on Sunday, during which time Lin was also present.

Lo said that after he refused to pay him the money, Wu had some 20 gangsters abduct him and assault him in a deserted house.

Wu, however, said that it was Lo who assaulted him first. Wu said Lin was at the restaurant because he happened to meet some friends there.

Lin said Wu was just a voter who maintains close contact with him and who had sought help mediating the dispute between the two restaurant shareholders five months ago.

Lin said he didn't interfere in the matter after the dispute was settled, and demanded Lo provide evidence of the charges.
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