The National Security Bureau (NSB) must provide a clear explanation of the alleged accidental discharge of an agent’s service weapon when the man was on duty at the presidential residence in December last year, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said yesterday.
Chiang said he learned of the incident in January, but had concerns about the veracity of his source’s information.
However, former deputy national security adviser Major General Lin Wen-hao’s (林文豪) request for early retirement made him think that something was going on, he said.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
While no one was hurt in the incident, it was indicative of major flaws in the security measures for the head of state and should not be glossed over or ignored by approving Lin’s retirement and the reassignment of the agent involved, Chiang said.
The bureau said that a member of the security detail on duty outside the residence in Taipei’s Zhongzheng District (中正), surnamed Wang (王), had failed to observe proper procedures when cleaning his service weapon, causing the pistol to accidentally discharge.
According to procedure, presidential guard members performing routine checks of their firearms are to face their guard complex with their backs to the residence while doing so, and they are instructed to point the muzzle skyward when checking the gun’s chamber.
Wang was less than 50m from the presidential residence when his gun discharged, Chiang said.
Handling the security of the head of state is not just about buying the right equipment; the discipline of agents and the management system is sometimes more important than the hardware, Chiang said.
“The bureau owes the nation a full report on the incident,” Chiang said, adding that a slew of incidents regarding the president’s security detail seem to indicate a general lack of discipline.
The lawmaker appeared to be referring to alleged sexual harassment in May last year of the first female guard to be posted to the Presidential Office Building, Colonel Chen Yueh-fang (陳月芳), by Major Yang Chih-wen (楊志文), and to Chan Tsung-han (詹宗漢), who was expelled from the guard unit for drinking before reporting for duty.
Wang was ordered to turn in his weapon on the spot and transferred to another unit that same day, the bureau said.
The bureau said it also changed the area where presidential guard members clean and check their weapons to the other side of a building handling security tasks on site.
It rejected Chiang’s claims that Lin was taking early retirement to shoulder responsibility for the discharge incident, saying that Lin had been offered a higher-paying job in the private sector and that his retirement application was not linked to the incident.
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