Tainan prosecutors on Thursday charged three adult suspects in a baby abuse case with homicide and intentionally harming and abusing a child, with the underage mother to be tried by a juvenile court.
The girl, aged one year and six months, was on Jan. 15 taken to a local hospital, where doctors found that she had been dead for several hours, the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office said in its indictment, adding that the girl had a brain hemorrhage, as well as bruises on her head and body.
The 17-year-old mother, surnamed Hsueh (薛), gave birth to the girl in 2017 with her boyfriend of the time, but they broke up and she had been living with a new partner, surnamed Lee (李), the indictment said.
Investigators said that at the time of the incident, Hsueh and Lee were at home, with Hsueh’s cousin and the cousin’s husband, surnamed Ho (何), and the four later that same day visited a KTV parlor.
During questioning by police the following day, all four admitted to beating the baby, but denied that they wanted to kill her, saying that they had only wanted her to stop crying, the indictment said.
Prosecutors are requesting a life sentence for the three adult suspects and have brought the same charges against the mother, who was detained at the juvenile court on Thursday, as she is younger than 18.
During questioning, the suspects told police that the baby had spilled a bottle of milk that day, and they had smacked her and banged her head against a wall to silence her, the indictment said.
The four have admitted to physically punishing the girl with plastic devices and rattan sticks, and coroners found numerous bruises and internal wounds sustained over a long time, the prosecutors said.
The four also frequently deprived the girl of food and sleep and they said they believed that she was possessed by an evil spirit, which needed to be driven out by beating her, the indictment said.
“At such an early age, a baby needs to be looked after and needs special protection,” the indictment read. “Healthy physical and mental development requires that they grow up in a family environment that provides love and care.”
The three adult suspects neglected their responsibilities and failed to give the baby the appropriate care, it said, adding that they punished and abused her for an extended time, resulting in her death.
“The suspects committed a severe crime against the victim and we therefore request that the court hand the suspects life sentences,” the indictment said.
Following media reports about the case, a crowd gathered at the police station and allegedly tried to assault the four suspects as they were brought in for questioning.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods