Police yesterday apprehended a suspect in a deadly fire at an apartment building in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和) on Wednesday night that killed nine people and injured two, and questioned the owner of units in the building, who could be charged with negligent manslaughter.
The suspect, identified as 49-year-old Li Guohui (李國輝), an ethnic Chinese man born in Myanmar, was arrested in the vicinity of the building at about 3am yesterday, Jhonghe Police Precinct Deputy Chief Huang Kuo-cheng (黃國政) said.
Police tracked Li down based on footage from surveillance cameras and information provided by some of the building’s residents, he said.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Li admitted during questioning to starting the fire with a cigarette lighter, Huang said.
Li reportedly had ongoing disputes with another ethnic Chinese man from Myanmar surnamed Hu (胡), who lives in one of the apartments on the building’s fourth floor, Huang said.
After an initial investigation, police said that Li poured gasoline from bottles on the stairwells on the third and fourth floors, and lit the fuel. The fire quickly spread out of control, because most of the building’s internal structure is made of wood and other flammable materials, they added.
While officials have not released the nationalities of the nine people killed in the fire, some are believed to have been migrant workers.
Police arrested Li within hours of the incident because he was known to them, as he had been questioned and placed on a watch list for alleged involvement in two arson cases in May and June in which no one died, Huang said.
The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office said that Li had been summoned for questioning as part of investigations into the two earlier incidents, but he failed to appear.
The New Taipei City Government said it would take legal action to seize the assets of current and previous owners of the apartment building.
City officials said numerous building code violations and illegal structures were found at the building, which might have contributed to the death toll.
Officials said they were also considering charging a woman surnamed Lien (連), reportedly the owner of the building’s fourth and fifth floors, with endangering public safety.
Lien was released on bail of NT$50,000 after questioning yesterday.
She is thought to have illegally divided each of the two floors into 14 units of about 2 to 3 ping (6.6m2 to 9.9m2) that were rented out, investigators said.
Investigators found that the building was originally a four-story structure and the fifth level, consisting of wooden walls and an aluminum roof, was illegally built by a previous owner, they said.
Additional reporting by Chen Wei-tzu and CNA
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