The March 19 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee yesterday announced that the shooting of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) did not occur as reported so therefore the election could have been manipulated. The committee said it would advise the Legislative Yuan to recall the presidency according to the law.
"Two preliminary findings have been made -- the gunshot that hit President Chen Shui-bian's abdomen did not occur at 1:45pm on March 19, 2004 on Jinghwa Road Sec. 3, and was not caused by a lead bullet and the motive of this incident might be rationally derived as to manipulate the election," committee spokeswoman Wang Ching-feng (
Wang said that the committee hoped the legislature would recall Chen's presidency according to the law, and that government officials associated with the incident who did not carry out their responsibilities properly would be impeached by the Control Yuan.
The committee was to forward its report to the Legislative Yuan following the press conference.
According to the committee, the results obtained from evidence that was picked out of trash bags were unreliable, and that national security units had been involved in the incident.
For instance, the way Chen wore his pants on the day of the shooting as described in forensic expert Henry Lee's (
Regarding the shooting motive, the committee eliminated suicide, murder attempts, or a crime committed by a mental patient.
The president, according to the committee, failed to respect the Constitution and the law, which led to the absurd fight between the government and the law.
Presidential Office spokesman Chen Wen-tsung (
"With no evidence to back up its claim, to call the shooting an election manipulation is an absurd conclusion," he said.
He said that the purpose of the committee itself was largely in violation of the Constitution.
"If the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] and People First Party follow the committee's advice to push to unseat Chen, there will be millions of pan-green supporters demonstrating in front of the legislature," said DPP caucus whip Lee Chun-yi (
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS