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.”
FAST TRACK? Chinese spouses must renounce their Chinese citizenship and pledge allegiance to Taiwan to gain citizenship, some demonstrators said Opponents and supporters of a bill that would allow Chinese spouses to obtain Taiwanese citizenship in four years instead of six staged protests near the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday morning. Those who oppose the bill proposed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) demanded that Chinese spouses be granted citizenship only after renouncing their Chinese citizenship, passing a citizenship test and pledging allegiance to Taiwan. The demonstrators, who were protesting at a side entrance to the Legislative Yuan on Jinan Road, were mostly members of the Taiwan Association of University Professors and other organizations advocating Taiwanese independence. Supporters of the bill, led
SILENT MAJORITY: Only 1 percent of Chinese rejected all options but war to annex Taiwan, while one-third viewed war as unacceptable, a university study showed Many Chinese are more concerned with developments inside their country than with seeking unification with Taiwan, al-Jazeera reported on Friday. Although China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has vowed to annex it, by force if necessary, 23-year-old Chinese Shao Hongtian was quoted by al-Jazeera as saying that “hostilities are not the way to bring China and Taiwan together.” “I want unification to happen peacefully,” Shao said. Al-Jazeera said it changed Shao’s name to respect his wish for anonymity. If peaceful unification is not possible, Shao said he would prefer “things to remain as they are,” adding that many of his friends feel
Taiwan has “absolute air superiority” over China in its own airspace, Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) told a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee on Monday, amid concern over whether Taipei could defend itself against a military incursion by Beijing. Po made the remarks in response to a question from Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) on whether Taiwan would have partial or complete air superiority if Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) warplanes were to enter Taiwan’s airspace. Po, a retired pilot, said that the Taiwanese military has “absolute air superiority” over PLA
A shipment of basil pesto imported by Costco Wholesale Taiwan from the US in the middle of last month was intercepted at the border after testing positive for excessive pesticide residue, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday. Samples taken from a shipment of the Kirkland Signature brand of basil pesto imported by Costco contained 0.1 milligrams per kilogram of ethylene oxide, exceeding the non-detectable limit. Ethylene oxide is a carcinogenic substance that can be used as a pesticide. The 674kg shipment of basil pesto would either be destroyed or returned to its country of origin, as is the procedure for all