The Ministry of Justice is investigating the claims of a man who said that he stood in for a number of criminals by appearing for them at trial and serving their prison sentences.
The man, who suffers from severe hemophilia, said he was willing to take the blame for other people's crimes because he knew he would be released early from the prison sentences as a result of his poor health.
Department of Corrections Director Shaw Ming-yi (蕭明毅) yesterday told a press conference that the man, Kuo Rong-hui (郭榮輝), 35, had been sentenced to a total of 36 years and six months in jail for a number of crimes, including offenses against public safety, theft, using and selling drugs and violations of gun, explosives and knife regulations.
Shaw said that Kuo had been released early from prison repeatedly because of his hemophilia, adding that Kuo had, for example, entered prison in late 2002 and been released for medical treatment on March 2003.
Shaw said that Kuo's condition required treatment amounting to NT$60,000 (US$1,800) per week, which the prisons could not afford.
The Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister newspaper) yesterday reported that Kuo had confessed in an interview to taking the place of a number of criminals at trial and in prison.
The Liberty Times reporter had interviewed Kuo at his home after a judge told the journalist about his suspicion that Kuo could be involved in a scam.
Kuo told the reporter that his criminal record listed about 90 crimes, of which about 70 were committed by other people.
He said that he had received NT$300,000 from each offender to take the consequences for their crimes and had once received NT$12 million from a drug smuggler.
Kuo said that since he had gotten away with the scam so many times, many gangsters had approached him for his service.
Kuo on Tuesday attended a trial at the Banciao District Court on charges of possession of two pistols. Another suspect had been charged with possessing a third pistol in the same case.
Kuo told the court that all three pistols were his and that the other suspect was innocent.
The court said it did not believe Kuo's claim and the judge had become suspicious.
The Liberty Times report prompted a police investigation, with Minister of Justice Morley Shih (
Banciao District Prosecutors' Office spokesman Huang Yu-yuan (黃玉垣) yesterday said that Banciao prosecutors had arrested Kuo while his claims were under investigation.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods