The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday concluded its investigation into a double homicide in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Bali District (八里) and indicted the prime suspect, Hsieh Yi-han (謝依函), on charges of murder, robbery, fraud and forgery.
The three other suspects in the case, Lu Ping-hung (呂炳宏), the owner of a coffee shop, and Lu’s friends, Ou Shih-chen (歐石城) and Chung Tien-feng (鍾典峰), were not indicted and were released due to insufficient evidence proving their involvement.
The four were considered prime suspects in the murders of Chen Chin-fu (陳進福), a businessman, and his wife, Chang Tsui-ping (張翠萍), an associate professor at Shih Chien University.
The couple was last seen at the Mama Mouth cafe in February before their bodies were discovered on the banks of the Tamsui River (淡水河) in Bali.
The investigation showed that Chen had been very fond of Hsieh, and visited the cafe every day to give her money, jewelry and gifts, while his wife was in class or traveling abroad.
The investigation also showed that Chen took Hsieh as his stepdaughter, although Chang’s younger sister said in a report in the Chinese-language China Times on Thursday that Chang had protested the decision, feeling that at their advanced age — Chen was 79 and Chang 57 — they could not afford to take care of a 30-year-old woman, whose fiancee did not have a stable job.
The investigation concluded that Hsieh’s motive for the murder was to obtain Chang’s jewelry collection — estimated at NT$40 million (US$1.3 million) — as she was strapped for cash.
The prosecutors’ office also summoned Hsieh’s mother, her fiance — surnamed Chu (祝) — and Chang’s younger sister as witnesses.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS