The Shilin District Court yesterday convicted four Singaporean university students of sexual assault and handed down suspended sentences that would see them avoid prison time, but with conditions preventing them from leaving the nation until their probation expires.
The four were originally sentenced to jail terms of between 20 and 23 months, but the judges suspended the sentences and gave probation of four years for two of them and five years for the other two.
As it was the first ruling on the case, the defendants can appeal the court’s decision.
Photo: Huang chieh, Taipei Times
After a late night of revelry and drinking by the four in December last year, two Taiwanese women said they were raped by the group.
Lau Wei Seng (劉瑋城) was an exchange student at a university in Taipei, while the other three are friends who were reportedly enrolled at universities in Singapore.
The three friends were identified by Singaporean newspaper the Straits Times as Bryan Ong Kun Jun (王琨駿), Tan Juan Yin (陳俊穎) and Lim Wei Xuan (林煒軒).
All four were aged 23 at the time.
Lau testified that he invited the three from Singapore for a visit, with the group touring around the nation before ending the trip at a bed-and-breakfast in Taipei, where the alleged sexual assault took place.
The judges cited an agreement by the four men to pay financial compensation of an undisclosed amount to the two women as justification for the suspended sentences.
The two victims have agreed to the private settlement and reportedly said they were willing to forgive the four men and not pursue the case further, the court ruling said.
While the suspended sentences mean the four men do not have to serve time in prison, their probation requires them to remain in Taiwan until their terms expire, as the judges imposed protective control measures.
The measures require the four to regularly report their activities and whereabouts to probation officers, and any further infraction of the law would see the suspension lifted.
Lau reportedly met one of the women, known as “Siao Fang” (小芳), at a nightclub in Taipei on Dec. 11, and later invited her back to the group’s lodgings to party with his friends.
Siao Fang reportedly invited a friend to the party, drinking late into the night.
Afterward, the two women accused the men of forcing them to have sex while they were inebriated, despite their objections.
The defense said it was consensual sex between adults, quoting Siao Fang as saying that they could have sex with her, but “please don’t hurt my friend.”
TPP RALLY: The clashes occurred near the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Saturday at a rally to mark the anniversary of a raid on former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je People who clashed with police at a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally in Taipei on Saturday would be referred to prosecutors for investigation, said the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the National Police Agency. Taipei police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by “disorderly” demonstrators, as well as contraventions of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. It added that amid the “severe pushing and jostling” by some demonstrators, eight police officers were injured, including one who was sent to hospital after losing consciousness, allegedly due to heat stroke. The Taipei
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
The US has revoked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) authorization to freely ship essential gear to its main Chinese chipmaking base, potentially curtailing its production capabilities at that older-generation facility. American officials recently informed TSMC of their decision to end the Taiwanese chipmaker’s so-called validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing site. The action mirrors steps the US took to revoke VEU designations for China facilities owned by Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The waivers are set to expire in about four months. “TSMC has received notification from the US Government that our VEU authorization for TSMC Nanjing
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
RSS