Two foreign military officers studying at National Defense University who were accused of sexually assaulting a woman were on Tuesday released on bail after being questioned at the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office.
A woman, identified as “Hsiao Hsuan” (小萱), accused the pair of sexually assaulting her at a Taipei hotel over the weekend.
However, some local Chinese-language media reported that the alleged assault took place at a nightclub.
The men were released after posting bail of NT$50,000 each.
Prosecutors said the officers could face charges of sexual offenses and imposed travel restriction on them.
The men, one of whom is a lieutenant colonel, are enrolled in a master’s program at the Graduate Institute of Strategic Studies and International Affairs at the school in Taoyuan’s Bade District (八德).
They are exchange students from the Dominican Republic and arrived in Taiwan in 2015, when the Caribbean nation was still Taiwan’s diplomatic ally, local media reported.
However, another source said that they were from Honduras.
The lieutenant colonel has denied the accusation and said the complaint stemmed from a misunderstanding and a verbal dispute between clients at a nightclub, prosecutors said.
The man said Hsiao Hsuan accused them with sexual assault to take revenge, they added.
However, there were conflicting reports on where and how the alleged incident took place.
Some media outlets reported that the alleged assault took place at a hotel after Hsiao Hsuan met the men on an online dating site.
She reportedly agreed to meet with the lieutenant colonel at the hotel on Sunday, but the officer arrived with a friend.
Hsiao Hsuan did not consent to having sex with both men, but was forced to do so, during which she sustained minor injuries, and filed a complaint with the police, local media said.
National Defense University in a statement said that the case is under judicial investigation, adding that it would cooperate with the probe.
The exchange program has been running for several decades, allowing the nation’s allies to send top students for officer training, with courses in political warfare and military strategy, as well as undergraduate and graduate programs.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
Taiwanese singer Jay Chou (周杰倫) plans to take to the courts of the Australian Open for the first time as a competitor in the high-stakes 1 Point Slam. The Australian Open yesterday afternoon announced the news on its official Instagram account, welcoming Chou — who celebrates his 47th birthday on Sunday — to the star-studded lineup of the tournament’s signature warm-up event. “From being the King of Mandarin Pop filling stadiums with his music to being Kato from The Green Hornet and now shifting focus to being a dedicated tennis player — welcome @jaychou to the 1 Point Slam and #AusOpen,” the
RSS