Lee Tai-an (李泰安), convicted of involvement in a South Link railway train derailment, was sentenced yesterday to 13 years in jail by the Taiwan High Court’s Kaohsiung branch.
Yesterday’s ruling was the third verdict for Lee, who can still appeal the case to the Supreme Court. In Lee’s first and second trials, he was was sentenced to life imprisonment and 18 years in prison by the Pingtung District Court and the Taiwan High Court’s Kaohsiung branch, respectively.
The ruling yesterday said Lee Tai-an and his brother Lee Shuang-chuan (李雙全), who committed suicide on March 23, 2006, as investigators began suspecting his involvement in the train derailment, conspired to destroy railway infrastructure and murder Chen Hong-chen (陳氏紅琛), the Vietnamese spouse of Lee Shuang-chuan.
The ruling said Lee Shuang-chuan had been the primary perpetrator, while Lee Tai-an was an accessory, so the court decided to reduce his sentence. The court found Lee Tai-an guilty of murder, destruction of railway infrastructure, endangering passenger safety and illegitimately collecting insurance payouts after Chen’s death.
Chen did not die in the train derailment — she was murdered, the ruling said. The incident occurred on March 17, 2006, when an express train traveling from Taitung to Kaohsiung derailed in Pingtung County. Among the passengers on the train were Lee Shuang-chuan — a Taiwan Railway Administration employee — and his wife.
Chen died in hospital after the derailment, but prosecutors became suspicious after they discovered that Lee Shuang-chuan had taken out a NT$20 million (US$624, 498) life insurance policy on his wife, which covered accidental death, a few days prior to the derailment.
The ruling said Chen had first been injected with Etumine, a strong sedative mainly administered to patients with mental illnesses, and then with snake poison, by Lee Shuang-chuan before she boarded the train. She was injected with an additional poison after being admitted to the hospital.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
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