The Taipei District Court yesterday granted a prosecutors’ request to detain three men suspected of abusing a three-year-old boy, resulting in his death.
During the investigation of the incident, which took place in New Taipei City (新北市), investigators found that the victim’s father, a man surnamed Liu (劉) who has a history of drug abuse, placed his son in the care of two men surnamed Hsu (許) and Chou (周), both of whom also have drug-related records, prosecutors said.
They said Chou and Hsu forced the boy to drink rice wine, then taped his mouth shut before whipping his legs with cable wires and pulling out his fingernails with -pliers.
The suspects allegedly told prosecutors that they tortured the boy because he wouldn’t stop crying.
Prosecutors said Chou and Hsu contacted Liu when they realized that the boy had stopped breathing. Liu then directed another man, surnamed Cheng (鄭), to inject the boy with diluted drugs in an attempt to revive him, but to no avail, prosecutors said.
The men then took the boy to Buddhist Tzu Chi General Hospital in Sindian Distict (新店) and left him there, they said.
Hsu, Chou and Cheng were arrested on Thursday and charged with manslaughter.
After interrogating the men, prosecutors requested that the Taipei District Court grant permission to detain the suspects.
The three men were quoted by prosecutors as saying they were misled by Liu’s instructions.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday said it had not excluded the possibility of detaining Liu for further questioning.
The boy’s mother only learned that her son had died from watching a news report on television and she then hurried to the hospital, prosecutors said.
However, because the mother is wanted in connection with a separate drug case, she was detained by the Banciao District Prosecutors’ Office, prosecutors said.
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