The chief investigator into the election-eve shooting of President Chen Shui-bian (
Criminal Investigation Bureau Commissioner Hou You-yi (
But he admitted he still has no clue who fired at the president or who plotted the attack.
"Many people have questioned if this will ever be resolved and say little progress has been made," Hou told reporters.
"If [authorities] want to let somebody else take over my job, I'd agree," he said. "I feel sorry."
As evidence that the president's wound was not faked, Hou showed footage filmed by the news media and security forces at the parade.
Chen and Lu were shown waving to supporters lining the streets as firecrackers went off around them creating a thick blanket of smoke. Chen was then shown holding his stomach with one hand and Lu was visibly agonized by pain.
Police are certain one gunman used a handgun made at an underground workshop to fire the shots from the side of the street where two bullet casings were later found, Hou said.
But no witnesses spotted the gunman because they were all looking at the president at the time, he said.
"This is a very difficult case," Hou said. "The crime scene was not sealed right away, and we had to reconstruct the scene step by step."
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
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