A college student surnamed Lee (李) reportedly heard of the intentions of the supposed Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) assailant Cheng Chieh (鄭捷) to carry out a killing spree hours before it took place on Wednesday, but did not inform anyone, local media reported yesterday.
Cheng, 21, is the suspect in the deaths on Wednesday of four passengers and assaults on 24 others on a Taipei MRT train at 4:26pm on the Bannan line. He was detained by police and MRT staff.
“I could not tell if he really meant to do it,” Lee, interviewed by prosecutors on Friday, was quoted by the Chinese-language China Times as saying. “I very much value my friendship with Cheng. If I told someone what he said, I was afraid of losing this friendship.”
The China Times report added that Lee was Cheng’s only close friend. They had been classmates at Hongdao Junior High School in Taipei.
Just two hours before the alleged MRT attack, Cheng met Lee at a fast-food restaurant.
Lee, whose family told police he is an introvert and has autistic tendencies, was quoted by police as saying that Cheng had talked about killing people many times, and that he could only try to dissuade him from having such thoughts because he could not tell whether Cheng meant it.
He said in the past six months, Cheng had talked more frequently about killing people, but “I did not report this to the police, because I did not know if he was talking ‘for real’ or not.”
Lee said that Cheng called him around 2pm on Wednesday and said to meet him at a McDonald’s restaurant on Wenhua Road in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋).
“At first, Cheng started talking about playing Tower of Saviors and League of Legends and other combat video games,” Lee said, then after about half an hour, Cheng said he had to leave.
Lee said that before he left, Cheng told him: “It’s about that time now. I have to pull my emotions together. Right after this, I will start the action.”
Lee said he knew Cheng was talking about killing people, “but I heard him talk about this countless times since our school days, so I did not pay particular notice this time.”
Cheng was also quoted by Lee as saying that he had a lot of stress from academic demands and job hunting, and that he was thinking about suicide.
After questioning at his local police precinct on Thursday, Lee was taken to the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday for more questioning and was released.
China appears to have built mockups of a port in northeastern Taiwan and a military vessel docked there, with the aim of using them as targets to test its ballistic missiles, a retired naval officer said yesterday. Lu Li-shih (呂禮詩), a former lieutenant commander in Taiwan’s navy, wrote on Facebook that satellite images appeared to show simulated targets in a desert in China’s Xinjiang region that resemble the Suao naval base in Yilan County and a Kidd-class destroyer that usually docks there. Lu said he compared the mockup port to US naval bases in Yokosuka and Sasebo, Japan, and in Subic Bay
Police are investigating the death of a Formosan black bear discovered on Tuesday buried near an industrial road in Nantou County, with initial evidence indicating that it was shot accidentally by a hunter. The bear had been caught in wildlife traps at least five times before, three times since 2020. Codenamed No. 711, the bear received extensive media coverage last year after it was discovered trapped twice in less than two months in the Taichung mountains. After its most recent ensnarement last month, the bear was released in the Dandashan (丹大山) area in Nantou County’s Sinyi Township (信義). However, officials became concerned after the
The majority of parents surveyed in northern Taiwan favor the suspension of all on-site classes at schools from the junior-high level and below amid a surge in domestic COVID-19 infections, parent groups said yesterday. About 84.4 percent of respondents in a survey of 2,912 parents in northern Taiwan, where the outbreak is the most serious, said they supported suspending classes, the Action Alliance on Basic Education, the Taiwan Parents Protect Women and Children Association, and the Taiwan Love Children Association said. The groups distributed questionnaires to parents in New Taipei City, Taipei, Keelung, Taoyuan and Hsinchu city and county from Saturday morning
DETERRENCE: US National Security Council Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell said cross-strait affairs are on the agenda at the US-ASEAN Special Leaders’ Summit The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday thanked the Czech Senate for passing a resolution supporting Taiwan’s inclusion in the WHO and other international organizations for the second consecutive year. The resolution was passed on Wednesday with 51 votes in favor, one opposed and 11 abstentions. In addition to the WHO, it also called for Taiwan’s participation in the “meetings, mechanisms and activities” of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the International Civil Aviation Organization and Interpol. In its opening, the resolution states that the Czech Republic “considers Taiwan as one of its key partners in the Indo-Pacific region,” while noting its
RSS