The family of a taxi driver who was beaten unconscious on Feb. 2 said on Monday that it would consider not filing a civil suit against one of the alleged assailants who has shown remorse for the assault.
The wife of the taxi driver said they would consider an out-of-court settlement with Makiyo, who is Japanese and Taiwanese, after the actress’ mother came forward several times to apologize to the driver, surnamed Lin (林).
The driver’s wife said that because Japanese national Takateru Tomoyori, who was allegedly the main assailant, had not shown any genuine remorse and was still lying about what had occurred, she and her husband would not rule out the possibility of filing a civil suit against Tomoyori.
Lin’s lawyer, Chou Wu-rong (周武榮), said that while Lin was now out of intensive care, his condition had yet to fully stabilize and it was too early to talk about any out-of-court settlement.
Taipei prosecutors indicted Tomoyori and Makiyo on Friday, seeking a six-year jail term for Tomoyori and four years for Makiyo for “inflicting serious bodily harm” on Lin.
According to the prosecutors, Makiyo hailed a taxi on Feb. 2 with two friends and Tomoyori. She reportedly refused to fasten her seatbelt in the rear of the taxi in compliance with a rear seatbelt law that went into effect the day before and an argument ensued. Tomoyori later allegedly assaulted and seriously injured the driver.
Makiyo participated in the attack, said the prosecutors, referring to a recently released video of the incident.
Later on Monday, Tomoyori secured a lawyer to represent him.
Tomoyori’s lawyer said his client was genuinely apologetic about the assault, adding that Tomoyori probably had not made himself clear over the past several days because of misunderstandings due to language barriers.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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