British fugitive Zain Dean, who fled Taiwan before he was to begin serving a jail term for manslaughter in a hit-and-run accident, should pay NT$7.55 million (US$254,630) in compensation to the family of his victim, a court ruled on Wednesday.
The Taipei District Court said that the victim, a newspaper deliveryman surnamed Huang (黃), was only 31 years old when he died in the accident in March 2010. Although Dean has no assets under his name in Taiwan, he served as head of the UK-based NCL Media’s Taiwan branch, and was reportedly driving a Mercedez-Benz when the accident took place, which the court said shows that he still had substantial financial means.
The judges said that because Dean was to blame for the accident, but denied responsibility and fled Taiwan by using his friend’s passport before his scheduled incarceration, a sum of NT$7.55 million was appropriate. Huang’s family had demanded nearly NT$10 million in compensation. The case can still be appealed.
Huang’s elder sister said that “the most important thing is to find Dean’s whereabouts and bring him back to face justice.”
The Taiwan High Court sentenced Dean to four years in jail after being convicted in July last year on charges of driving under the influence of alcohol, manslaughter and committing a hit-and-run. The hit-and-run charge is being appealed.
Dean was supposed to begin his sentence last year, but fled the country on Aug. 14 last year. The authorities put Dean on the nation’s wanted list on Jan. 29.
Dean issued a statement last month in which he continued to assert his innocence, especially questioning the prosecutors’ handling of video evidence that might have shown the accident. Dean said that he would be willing to return to be retried on four conditions, including having the video evidence being presented in court and having human rights observers present at the new trial.
Taipei prosecutors flatly rejected the conditions.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS