A member of a township council in eastern Hualien County was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in prison for raping a caregiver from Indonesia, in a verdict handed down by the Supreme Court.
The nation’s highest court rejected an appeal by Chen Chen-fu (陳振富), an elected representative in Fuli Township (富里) who in January last year received the same sentence from the Hualien District Court.
The district court handed down a relatively lengthy prison term as it found the defendant had not shown remorse for raping the woman twice in 2014, claiming that they had had consensual intercourse.
After the appeal, the case came before the Supreme Court, which ruled that the defendant continued to resort to sophistry in an attempt to avoid punishment, according to a court document released on Thursday.
The defendant had never asked for the victim’s forgiveness, the court said, adding that such a crime cannot be easily ignored.
The Supreme Court’s ruling is final and Chen will be stripped of his post as councilor on the first day of his jail term.
Chen was accused of raping his neighbor’s foreign caregiver while he was drunk in July 2014 and again four months later, after winning re-election, according to court documents.
The woman, a Muslim, said she could not report the offense to police after being raped in her employer’s home the first time because she was worried that she might herself be detained, as would be the case under Shariah law, according to police records.
She finally reported the crime after being assaulted a second time, records stated.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard