Six Indonesian crewmen suspected of murdering the skipper and chief engineer of a Taiwanese fishing boat last month have been detained, while three others have been referred to Indonesian authorities in Taiwan, the Yilan District Prosecutors’ Office said.
Six of the nine Indonesians employed on the Suao-registered Te Hung Hsing No. 368 are suspected of involvement in throwing the fishing boat’s skipper, Chen Te-sheng (陳德生), and chief engineer, Ho Chang-lin (何昌琳), overboard in the eastern Pacific, Yilan prosecutors said after questioning the crewmen on Wednesday.
Prosecutors said a senior Indonesian crewman had an argument with Chen over work assignments. The sparring developed into a conflict in which the Indonesian is alleged to have attacked Chen with a plastic float. Chen fell unconscious and other Indonesian workers allegedly threw him overboard, followed by Ho.
The boat was later intercepted by two Coast Guard Administration (CGA) patrol vessels and towed back to Suao (蘇澳), where the suspects were referred to prosecution authorities for questioning. The three who were handed over to the Indonesian authorities in Taiwan are suspected of illegally taking control of the vessel and causing damage to the property, according to the prosecutor’s office.
The Te Hung Hsing No. 368 left Nanfangao in Yilan County on Jan. 18 to fish in the eastern Pacific. It lost contact with the ship’s owner in Yilan on July 16. The CGA was informed two days later that the ship’s skipper and chief engineer, the only two Taiwanese on board, had not been in contact for three days.
At the time, the fishing boat was 10,945km southeast of Oluanpi at the southernmost tip of Taiwan. A CGA patrol vessel caught up with the fishing boat in waters 623 nautical miles (1,154km) southwest of Kiribati on July 27. CGA officers did not find any sign of the boat’s skipper or chief engineer upon boarding and searching the boat. The CGA then sent another patrol vessel to help with the investigation.
A Chinese military drone was spotted conducting reconnaissance off Taitung County as President William Lai (賴清德) visited Pingtung County this morning to inspect a drill of the armed forces’ precision-strike capabilities, prompting the military to closely monitor its actions. Today was the final day of a three-day military exercise at Jioupeng Base (九鵬基地) to test the joint combat capabilities of the armed forces and coast guard. The exercise began on Wednesday simulating air defense interception and yesterday tested long-range strike capabilities and new air defense weapons. This morning, the military conducted a final exercise involving air defense, anti-ship and drone operations. Military sources said
OCT. 31: The antiviral drugs Tamiflu and Eraflu have been distributed to about 4,000 medical facilities nationwide for people in seven groups who develop flu-like symptoms As the domestic influenza epidemic enters its peak season and continues to escalate, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday announced that publicly funded influenza antiviral drugs for seven eligible groups have been extended to Oct. 31, allowing those who develop flu-like symptoms to receive the medication without undergoing a rapid influenza test. The CDC has extended the expanded use of flu antiviral drugs to seven groups: healthcare and influenza-prevention personnel; residents and staff at nursing homes, long-term care facilities and similar institutions; kindergarten and daycare workers and home-based caregivers; students from kindergarten through high school, vocational high school and the
RARE PEEK: The footage released showed one of the bears staying in a cave for as long as 70 days, providing the first record of Formosan black bear’s overwintering The Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency yesterday released tracking records of released Formosan black bears for the first time, showing that they get much closer to human settlements than previously thought. The agency said it had captured two bears, Da Qu-ali (達古阿里) and Aziman (阿里曼), in indigenous villages in Hualien County and began to track them with a camera-mounted satellite collar after releasing them back into the wild. The results confirmed that the bears have moved from deep mountain areas into lowland hills closer to human communities, leading to an increase in human-bear conflicts, it said. The agency has introduced artificial intelligence-assisted early
Taiwanese Tsai Chin-shu (蔡金樹), who had been imprisoned in China for engaging in activity that “endangers national security,” said on Facebook on Friday that he has returned to Taiwan. Tsai, chairman of the Southern Taiwan Union of Cross-strait Relations Associations, had traveled frequently between Taiwan and China for years, and at one time ran a trading company in China’s Pingtan. In July 2018, he traveled to Quanzhou, Fujian Province, to attend a cross-strait food trade fair and stayed at a hotel in Xiamen. He checked out the following day and then disappeared. His family had made repeated appeals to the authorities
RSS