Policeman tells of bomb ordeal

The police officer who, posing as a television reporter, tried to dissuade a gangster from blowing himself up with a homemade bomb on Wednesday night said yesterday he was sorry he didn't succeed in his mission.

Huang Jin-sheng (黃金生), who police said was a 41-year-old gangster who earned a living by producing explosives for other gangsters, killed himself after a nearly seven-hour standoff with police.

"When I was talking to him [Huang], all that I was thinking about was to accomplish my mission: disarm him and talk him down," said Hsintien Precinct's Criminal Investigation Section Officer Shih Jiunn-hsiung (施俊雄), who posed as the CTTV reporter.

"I am sorry that I could not succeed," he said.

Asked whether he was scared, he said that he was nervous at the time but did not begin to feel really scared until the standoff was over.

"Huang was armed with the bomb. I was very worried that he might accidentally trigger it. But after the incident, I began to feel scared because I realized that I might have been killed too," Shih said. "But I still feel sorry that he decided to end his life like this. He didn't need to."

The ordeal began at around 3:30pm on Wednesday, when officers from Taipei City Police's Hsinyi Precinct arrested two people for illegal possession of firearms. The two suspects told police that Huang was the one who sold them the firearms.

Officers from the precinct, the National Police Administration's Criminal Investigation Bureau and the Taipei County Police's Hsintien Precinct decided to raid Huang's Hsintien residence, a two-story house where he allegedly produced explosives and handguns.

When the police arrived, Huang ran out of the house carrying a bomb of liquid explosives and sat down at the side of the road outside.

Shih, with two other officers, pretended to be part of a news crew and was shown on television talking to Huang and smoking cigarettes with him.

Shih said he and his colleagues decided that Huang was mentally unstable and tried to subdue him by giving him cold drinks laced with tranquilizers.

"He did drink it and we were waiting. Unfortunately, he decided to trigger the bomb before the sleeping drugs began to work," Shih said.

Just before 10pm, Huang told the undercover police officers they had 50 seconds to get clear and then detonated the bomb, causing a large fireball.

The police said that in addition to explosives and handgun production, Huang is also suspected of kidnapping Hong Kong businessman Yeh Yung-tang (葉永堂) on April 27, 2001.

The kidnapping ended after eight hours when Yeh's friends gave Huang NT$600,000 in cash and a NT$5.4 million check.

When the police tried to arrest him on May 24 that year, he threatened to use four grenades to defend himself.

Huang was out on bail awaiting trial when he killed himself on Wednesday.