Prosecutors on Wednesday indicted eight Indonesian fishermen on manslaughter charges relating to an incident in July that left the Taiwanese captain and chief engineer of a fishing boat dead.
The indictment said that the 98-tonne deep-sea fishing boat Te Hung Hsing No. 368 was operating in the east Pacific on July 15 when its captain, Chen Te-sheng (陳德生), became embroiled in an argument with Indonesian fishermen on board that reportedly led to his death and the death of chief engineer Ho Chang-lin (何昌琳).
Prosecutors alleged that the fisherman responsible for the killing said: “I just assaulted the captain. Now the chief engineer is your responsibility.”
Ho was apparently thrown overboard in his sleep. Prosecutors said Ho had tried to cling to a railing on the side of the boat, but was “mercilessly” kicked into the water.
The Taiwanese boat had set out from Nanfangao (南方澳) in Yilan County for waters in the east Pacific with the captain, chief engineer and nine Indonesian fishermen aboard.
The ship’s owner last communicated with its crew on July 15, when it was operating about 527 nautical miles (976km) northwest of French Polynesia.
The Coast Guard Administration later dispatched a vessel to search for the missing boat and boarded it on July 27. Coast guard officials said they could find no sign of Chen or Ho.
The coast guard vessel then escorted the boat back to Taiwan, where it arrived on Aug. 20 after a 24-day, 4,870-nautical-mile journey.
The nine Indonesian fishermen were turned over to the Yilan District Prosecutors’ Office for further investigation.
One of the fishermen was not charged.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods