The Ministry of National Defense (MND) yesterday filed a provisional lawsuit with the Taipei District Court asking it to seize the property of former minister of national defense Chen Chao-min (陳肇敏) and seven former military officials to ensure they return NT$103.18 million (US$3.4 million) in compensation that has been paid to the family of an air force serviceman who was wrongly executed 14 years ago for the rape and murder of a young girl.
In a ruling on Oct. 27, the Northern Military District Court awarded this amount in damages to Wang Tsai-lien (王彩蓮), the mother of wrongfully executed air force serviceman Chiang Kuo-ching (江國慶).
The ruling said the military court had formed a committee to decide who would be responsible for paying the compensation.
Photo: CNA
After interviewing those involved in the case, five legal experts and four district military court members on the committee determined that Chen, who was then the air force commander, and former air force counterintelligence officials Ko Chung-ching (柯仲慶), Teng Chun-huan (鄧震環), Lee Shu-chiang (李書強) and Ho Tsu-yao (何祖耀), former Air Force Command legal department director Tsao Chia-sheng (曹嘉生), as well as former military prosecutors Chao Tai-shen (趙台生) and Huang Jui-peng (黃瑞鵬), should be responsible for the compensation.
The ministry said to ensure that the compensation would be paid, officials had filed a provisional seizure lawsuit against the eight former officials, asking the district court to seize their properties.
According to Chen’s asset report to the Control Yuan, he owns two property units and one plot of land, has NT$11.38 million in bank deposits, NT$780,000 in jewelry and NT$580,000 in stocks.
In 1996, Chiang was accused of raping and killing a five-year-old girl at Air Force Combat Command in Taipei. He confessed to air force counterintelligence officers that he had committed the crime and was later convicted and sentenced to death. Chiang was executed in 1997 at the age of 21.
However, in a retrial of the case in September this year, the military court acquitted Chiang of the charges, ruling that his confession had been made under duress and was not admissible.
Furthermore, the evidence presented in the case, such as the suspected murder weapon and a tissue stained with the child’s blood, was not conclusive and had not been subject to modern forensic examination, the court ruled.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS