Wed, Dec 09, 2009 - Page 2 News List

Defendant sentenced to death for the eighth time

ROUND AND ROUND Hsu Tsu-chiang’s lawyers say his conviction was based solely on the confessions of two codefendants, one of whom recanted the testimony

By Celia Llopis-Jepsen  /  STAFF REPORTER

Before the judgment was announced, as Chen waited in the hallway for guards to arrive with her son from Taipei Detention Center, she said Hsu no longer believed he would ever be free.

“They only have the confessions to go on,” she told the Taipei Times. “How can that be justice?”

“He wants to give up. He told me long ago: ‘This case is hurting everyone so much, let me go mother [let the execution proceed],’” she said.

After the judgment, between sobs, Chen said she had prepared lunch and new clothes for her son, hoping he would finally come home with her, but the clothes will go unworn.

In an interview the day before the latest judgment, Hsu’s lawyer Greg Yo (尤伯祥) said there is no evidence that Hsu participated in the 1995 murder.

On the other hand, “there is plenty of evidence that the two codefendants lied when they implicated Hsu,” he said.

The case will now go to the Supreme Court, which is likely to return the case to the lower court for a retrial.

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