The New Taipei City (新北市) Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted Hu Tsung-hsien (胡宗賢) and Chu Ya-tung (朱亞東) over their suspected roles in a failed bombing attempt on a high-speed rail train in April and asked for the heaviest punishment possible.
Both Hu and Chu are being indicted on charges of attempted murder, attempted arson and forgery.
Prosecutors claim that Hu’s motives were not simply to express his dissatisfaction with society, adding that he also attempted to gain personal profit from short-selling various stocks prior to the attempted attack.
Hu spent a lot of time looking up Clostridium botulinum (a toxin-producing bacterium) and how to remotely detonate explosive devices using a mobile phone, prosecutors said.
The indictment said that Hu, with Chu’s aid, placed explosive devices on northbound high-speed rail train No. 616 as well as outside the Tucheng District (土城), New Taipei City, constituency office of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lu Chia-chen (盧嘉辰).
Prosecutors further charged Hu with giving suitcases containing explosives to Lu’s office in the name of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) saying they were to be given to Hon Hai Group chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘).
Prosecutors discovered that after Hu had allegedly placed the explosive devices on the high-speed train, he used the Internet to place an order to short-sell 500 shares.
All four bombs failed to explode due to either mishandling on Chu’s part or design flaws, prosecutors said.
The two suspects fled Taiwan and flew to China after allegedly planting the explosive devices. Chinese authorities — with the aid of facial recognition software — apprehended the pair in Guangdong on April 14 and repatriated them to Taiwan on April 16.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
A 23-year-old Taichung man vowed to drink more water after his heavy consumption of sugary tea landed him in hospital with a kidney infection and sepsis. The man, surnamed Lin (林), used to drink two cups of half-sugar oolong tea while working at a food stall, where he often had to wait a long time before urinating. Lin developed kidney stones and noticed blood in his urine, but ignored the issue after taking medication for three days. A month later, he went to the emergency room after experiencing a recurring fever and was diagnosed with a kidney infection that led to sepsis, landing
RSS