The Taipei District Court yesterday sentenced Lin Chang-cheng (
Twenty thousand people were evacuated from the shopping venue when the fire broke out on Feb. 18 this year.
Another two suspects, Wang Lin-kwun (
Wang is a close friend of Lin Chang-cheng's and owned a shop selling Chinese teapots on the mall's seventh floor. Lin Ching-chi is Wang's uncle.
According to the verdict, Lin Chang-cheng was upset with Core Pacific Group Chairman Shen Ching-ching's (
The verdict also says that Lin Chang-cheng then lured Wang to take part in the arson by offering him NT$100,000, and that they initially planned to destroy the mall's power system by means of a fire during business hours.
The court's findings say Wang invited his uncle Lin Ching-chi to start the fire.
According to the court, Lin Ching-chi filled empty mineral-water bottles with gasoline and set them alight in the electricity room on the mall's third floor.
"Lin Chang-cheng ignored public safety by masterminding the arson because of his personal problems at work and invited Wang and Lin Ching-chi to join the plan. Both Lin Ching-chi and Wang showed remorse for their crimes after they were arrested. So the court issued a four-year sentence for Lin Chang-cheng and three years and eight months for both Wang and Lin Ching-chi," said a court spokesman.
An unnamed Core Pacific official yesterday was quoted as saying that the damage to the company's reputation had been greater than its financial losses.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
RSS