Two men accused of a failed attack on a high-speed rail train and outside a lawmaker’s office in April last year were given heavy sentences yesterday by the New Taipei City (新北市) District Court.
Defendants Hu Tsung-hsien (胡宗賢) and Chu Ya-tung (朱亞東), Hu’s aide, were sentenced to jail terms of 22 years and 12 years respectively on charges of attempted murder, attempted arson and forgery.
Hu and Chu were sentenced for placing suitcases containing incendiary devices on northbound high-speed rail train No. 616 and outside Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lu Chia-chen’s (盧嘉辰) office in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Tucheng District (土城).
Hu left suitcases containing flammable substances in front of Lu’s office with a note which had the name of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) written on it and said the suitcases were to be given to Hon Hai Group chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘), the ruling said.
After Hu placed the devices on the high-speed train, he placed an order to short-sell 500 shares. All four bombs failed to explode due to either mishandling on Chu’s part or design flaws, the court said.
The two men fled Taiwan to China after planting the incendiary devices.
Chinese authorities — with the aid of facial recognition software — apprehended the pair in Guangdong days later and repatriated them to Taiwan.
The district court said the two men can appeal the ruling to the Taiwan High Court.
The ruling said Hu’s attempt to attack a high-speed train which could have caused serious casualties was “evil.”
The ruling said that by arguing that the devices in the pieces of luggage would not cause a lot of damage and that he wanted to express his dissatisfaction with the state of society Hu had not shown any remorse for his actions.
The court added Hu, who is not only a lawyer but also holds certificates in the fields of chemistry and finance, did not simply want to express his dissatisfaction with society, but attempted to gain personal profit from short-selling various stocks prior to the attempted attack.
The court said Hu had spent a lot of time looking up Clostridium botulinum (a toxin-producing bacterium) and how to remotely detonate incendiary devices using a mobile phone, the court said.
During questioning, Chu agreed to cooperate with investigators and to reveal what he knew of Hu’s how dangerous those plans had been to Chu himself.
Chu said he did not know the suitcases contained incendiary devices until he smelled gasoline, adding that he had asked Hu after getting off the train whether the stakes were not too high.
Chu had been in great danger while placing the suitcases, police said, adding that they suspected that Hu had intended for Chu to take the fall for him.
Police said that if Chu had died Hu might have escaped arrest because of insufficient evidence, adding that it might have worked, as Chu was the last link in the plot.
Additional reporting by staff writer
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS