The Ministry of Justice said yesterday it would investigate a case in which a prisoner at Taipei Prison took the place of another prisoner in a court hearing and escaped after being released on bail.
Acting minister of justice Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) told a legislative meeting yesterday that the ministry would investigate the case and discipline staff at Taipei Prison who were responsible for the mishap.
Lo Shih-hung (羅世宏), who was sentenced to eight years in prison for selling drugs, stood in for his cell mate surnamed Lin at the hearing at Banciao District Court on Friday morning.
Lo passed through two checkpoints at the prison before he was taken to court.
After the hearing, the court decided to release “Lin” on bail as he was charged with forgery, a less serious crime.
Lo’s brother-in-law completed the bail procedure and took Lo from the district court at 10:30am.
Staff at Taipei Prison learned about the switch in the afternoon when prison personnel were checking on inmates.
The prison notified police immediately and Lo was placed on the wanted list.
Taipei Prison officials said Lo and Lin are both about 35 years old and similar in appearance.
The district court said yesterday that Lo was familiar with the details of the forgery case and was able to pass himself off as Lin.
It said that Lo and Lin would receive extra sentencing for the incident.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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