The Taiwan High Court yesterday reversed earlier rulings on a Taipei murder case dating from 2000 and found the defendant, Lu Chieh-min (呂介閔), not guilty.
The ruling said that the court’s decision was based on new DNA tests of bodily fluids found on the female victim.
Lu, now 35, was found not guilty of murder due to a lack of evidence in the first and second rulings. However, in subsequent court-mandated retrials, he received a guilty verdict and was sentenced to a 13-year prison term in 2010.
Photo: Taipei Times
After 10 years of judicial proceedings and exhausting his appeals, Lu was incarcerated and has since served four years of his sentence.
In May, new evidence was presented for re-examination using the latest DNA testing technique.
Lu was charged with the murder of his girlfriend, surnamed Kuo (郭), after her body was found at a public park in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) in July 2000.
Photo: CNA
Kuo’s body showed evidence of trauma to her head — it was suspected that she was struck by a blunt object — and there was a bite mark on her left breast, along with indications that she was sexually assaulted.
A criminal investigation and evidence suggested that the two had an argument over Lu’s decision to date other women, quarreling at the park when Lu allegedly hit her with a blunt weapon, killing Kuo, and then partially removed her clothing and underwear.
Prosecutors said the bite mark on Kuo’s left breast was a “love bite” by Lu, and a coroner’s report said the mark conformed to features of Lu’s teeth.
“The new DNA testing showed that the saliva left on the female victim’s body did not match the defendant’s DNA. Therefore we concurred that the bite mark was not made by the defendant,” Taiwan High Court spokesman Chou Ying-wen (周盈文) said about yesterday’s ruling. “Also, DNA from semen samples taken from the victim’s body and underwear did not match Lu’s DNA.”
However, there were still questions and doubts over the case.
“All of the evidence points to Lu as my daughter’s killer, but now DNA testing shows it was not him. Then who was the murderer? Can the courts give justice to my daughter? They must help us to find the murderer,” Kuo’s mother said yesterday.
Chou said that in the first and second trials, Lu had confessed to leaving the bite mark on the victim. However, the court took into consideration that Lu was influenced by the forensic report at the time, which indicated the bite mark conformed to Lu’s teeth.
Chou said that public prosecutors would not appeal yesterday’s verdict to the Supreme Court, unless there were extraordinary circumstances, such as “cited legal reasons for the verdict having contravened the Constitution, or contravened legal interpretation by the Judicial Yuan, or contravened other precedent rulings.”
The first global hotel Keys Selection by the Michelin Guide includes four hotels in Taiwan, Michelin announced yesterday. All four received the “Michelin One Key,” indicating guests are to experience a “very special stay” at any of the locations as the establishments are “a true gem with personality. Service always goes the extra mile, and the hotel provides much more than others in its price range.” Of the four hotels, three are located in Taipei and one in Taichung. In Taipei, the One Key accolades were awarded to the Capella Taipei, Kimpton Da An Taipei and Mandarin Oriental Taipei. Capella Taipei was described by
The Taichung District Court yesterday confirmed its final ruling that the marriage between teenage heir Lai (賴) and a man surnamed Hsia (夏) was legally invalid, preventing Hsia from inheriting Lai’s NT$500 million (US$16.37 million) estate. The court confirmed that Hsia chose not to appeal the civil judgement after the court handed down its ruling in June, making the decision final. In the June ruling, the court said that Lai, 18, and Hsia, 26, showed “no mutual admiration before the marriage” and that their interactions were “distant and unfamiliar.” The judge concluded that the couple lacked the “true intention of
EVA Airways today confirmed the death of a flight attendant on Saturday upon their return to Taiwan and said an internal investigation has been launched, as criticism mounted over a social media post accusing the airline of failing to offer sufficient employee protections. According to the post, the flight attendant complained of feeling sick on board a flight, but was unable to take sick leave or access medical care. The crew member allegedly did not receive assistance from the chief purser, who failed to heed their requests for medical attention or call an ambulance once the flight landed, the post said. As sick
INDUSTRY: Beijing’s latest export measures go beyond targeting the US and would likely affect any country that uses Chinese rare earths or related tech, an academic said Taiwanese industries could face significant disruption from China’s newly tightened export controls on rare earth elements, as much of Taiwan’s supply indirectly depends on Chinese materials processed in Japan, a local expert said yesterday. Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈), director of the Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, said that China’s latest export measures go far beyond targeting the US and would likely affect any country that uses Chinese rare earths or related technologies. With Japan and Southeast Asian countries among those expected to be hit, Taiwan could feel the impact through its reliance on Japanese-made semi-finished products and
RSS