As the investigation into the murder of a young Hong Kong woman who came to Taiwan for a vacation last month continues, police officers yesterday said her autopsy results indicated she might have been strangled.
The body of 20-year-old Poon Hiu-wing (潘曉穎) was recovered yesterday morning from an overgrown field just outside Zhuwei (竹圍) MRT station in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水).
Hong Kong police on Tuesday arrested Poon’s boyfriend, 20-year-old Hong Kong college student Chan Tung-kai (陳同佳), media reports said.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
Poon and Chan arrived in Taiwan on Feb. 8 for a holiday and to spend Valentine’s Day together, Taipei police said.
The couple visited several places and on Feb. 13 checked into the Purple Garden Hotel in Taipei.
Chan checked out of the hotel alone on Feb. 17 and returned to Hong Kong that night, they said.
Photo: Screen grab from Facebook
Investigators believe the pair got into an argument, and suspect that Chan, in a fit of anger, strangled Poon, stuffed her body inside a pink suitcase and disposed of it outside Zhuwei MRT Station.
Surveillance cameras show Chan towing a pink suitcase on the morning of Feb. 17 and taking the MRT to the station, where police believe he disposed of her body and abandoned the luggage at another location.
Video footage shows Chan returning to the hotel in the evening without the suitcase, and then checking out.
Poon’s parents filed a missing person’s report with Hong Kong authorities.
Hong Kong police found that Chan had used Poon’s bank card to withdraw money on two occasions, on Feb. 17 in Taiwan and on Feb. 20 in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong police have begun negotiations with Taiwanese authorities to transfer Chan to Taipei for investigation.
As Hong Kong and Taiwan do not have an extradition treaty, Hong Kong media have quoted officials as saying that the negotiations might take some time, because a special provisional bill might be needed for an extradition request, which has to be approved by the territory’s Legislative Council.
Police and investigators yesterday went to the hotel where the couple had stayed to search for possible evidence.
Chan has reportedly confessed to Hong Kong police that he killed Poon and has told them where he disposed of her body.
Local media reports said that Poon’s father, who came to Taiwan to ask the police to look for his daughter, was distraught as he was accompanied by officials to a Taipei morgue to see her body and wait for autopsy results.
The Central Weather Bureau could issue a sea alert for Super Typhoon Mawar, as it is forecast to turn north and come closest to Taiwan from Tuesday to Wednesday next week. Mawar was downgraded from a super typhoon to a typhoon after sweeping across Guam on Wednesday night, knocking down trees and leaving much of the US territory without power. Many residents of Guam yesterday remained without power and utilities after Mawar tore through the remote US Pacific territory the previous night, ripping roofs off homes, flipping vehicles and shredding trees. There were no immediate reports of deaths and injuries, but the
ADJUSTMENTS: Over the next five years, every year except 2026 would have only one makeup workday to compensate for national holidays, the government said The Executive Yuan (EY) yesterday announced the official workday calendar for next year, which includes one makeup day and four holidays with more than three days off. It also announced new standards for makeup days in the event of consecutive holidays. The Directorate-General of Personnel Administration cited the importance of the Lunar New Year and Tomb Sweeping holidays to the public as its reason to mandate flexible off-days. The 115 total off-days dovetail with dates that international financial markets are closed, minimizing the effects of state holidays on stock and currency exchange trading, it said. Over the next five years, only the calendar for
Police on Sunday said they are on alert after the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP) invited an alleged top leader of a Japanese criminal organization to visit Taiwan. The party and a branch of the Hongmen society reportedly invited Joji Uezu from the Kyokuryu-kai, the only yakuza group in Okinawa designated by Japanese police, to visit Taiwan along with six other people. Members of Taiwan’s Bamboo Union (竹聯幫) have reportedly participated in events hosted by the Kyokuryu-kai as early as 2015. The Okinawa Times in 2018 reported that Chang Wei (張瑋), son of former Bamboo Union leader and CUPP founder Chang An-le (張安樂),
INVASION UNPOPULAR: Chinese would likely accept their government having a softer stance toward cross-strait relations, one of the coauthors of the article said Interest among the Chinese public in the issue of China’s unification with Taiwan is low, researchers said, citing the results of a poll. An article titled “Assessing Public Support for (Non-)Peaceful Unification with Taiwan: Evidence from a Nationwide Survey in China,” published in the Journal of Contemporary China on May 14, showed that only 55 percent of those surveyed in China would support the use of military force to achieve unification with Taiwan. In the survey, which polled 1,824 people on the question of how they would like to see the issue of Taiwan’s unification with China resolved, “only one out of