A man who made an online threat to kill President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) two daughters was released on NT$50,000 bail yesterday after police questioned him for more than one hour.
“We initially thought the suspect we were after could be some unidentified blogger in the US because he was using a US Yahoo e-mail account. We later discovered that the suspect was actually in Taipei’s Da-an (大安) District,” said Liu Po-liang (劉柏良), deputy commissioner of the Criminal Investigation Bureau.
Police picked the suspect up at his private office in Taipei on Thursday evening, hours after they were alerted to the online threat, which has since been removed.
The 50-year-old man, identified only by his family name Chen (陳), was referred to prosecutors for investigation yesterday morning after he confessed to police that he wrote the message threatening the lives of the president’s two adult daughters. Chen told police during questioning that he had made the threat because he was dissatisfied with the state of affairs in Taiwan, said Liu, adding that Chen, a native of Changhwa, is an IT technician.
The threat was made in an article posted online by Chen under the heading, “Don’t think you’re safe because you’re in the US,” referring to Ma’s two daughters, who both reside in the US.
Police said Chen apologized during questioning, adding that he had no idea the post would cause such a stir.
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