Mon, Aug 28, 2000 page3

• Yin case remains a mystery

  After lying dormant for nearly eight years, the change of governemnt in May injected new life into the investigation of the 1992 murder of navy Captain Yin Ching-feng. But while the case is now back in the headkines, for Yin's window, Li Mei-kuei, it is just another step in her long road to see justice done as she tells 'Taipei Times' reporter Brian Hsu

  • By Brian Hsu / STAFF REPORTER
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  Taipei Times: Could you tell us about the relationship between Captain Yin and his office colleague Kou Li-heng (郭力恆), a key witness in the murder case who has been imprisoned since 1994? Some witnesses claim your husband was afraid of Kuo. But their statements seem counter to the fact that your husband was accompanied by Kuo on many key dates that are considered important in the case.

  Li Mei-kuei: I have recently visited another important witness in the case -- Liu Shu (劉樞) -- and learned that my husband had told Liu that he did not like Kuo. My husband was Kuo's supervisor at the weapons procurement office at the navy general headquarters. Though he disliked Kuo, my husband had no choice but to keep him in his office because he was considered very capable by many higher-ranking officials.

  Kuo had left some bad records during his stay in the US on a military purchase matter. He was then ordered to return to Taiwan earlier than scheduled. The bad records didn't seem to influence Kuo in his later development in the navy. He still enjoyed trust from higher authorities he had served and was able to get a position at the weapons procurement office.

  

  Li Mei-kuei, widow of murdered navy Captain Ying Ching-feng, says that there remains an undercurrent of manipulation involving the case.

  FILE PHOTO, TAIPEI TIMES

  Kuo had been in the weapons procurement office for quite a long time before my husband was appointed as the executive officer of the office in May 1993, by then-Navy Commander-in-Chief General Chuang Ming-yao (莊銘曜).

  Yin had no choice but to trust Kuo because Kuo had won the confidence of many top-ranking officials. He once told Liu Shu, his junior at the military's Chungcheng Institute of Technology, that he did not have staff that he could count on because talented people [like Liu] had chosen to retire early.

  Why did servicemen like Liu want to leave? The reason is that they could find a more profitable career in arms brokerage. Even Kuo had planned to retire in March 1994, which would have happened were it not for Yin's murder three months earlier on Dec. 9, 1993.

  TT: What do you think of the response by retired navy Captain Chen Lu-cheng (陳祿曾) to allegations that he might know who murdered Yin and had attempted to misdirect the investigation into the case? [Chen was the director of the office of General Chuang at the time of the murder].

  Li: I do not trust Chen. Chen, now staying in New Zealand, told the local press that he could not have attempted -- as accused -- of blocking Yin from meeting with General Chuang in the months before the murder because his office was at the back of Chuang's. Do you believe what he said?

  The other suspicious point I want to emphasize is: Why did Chen ask a subordinate officer to phone Taiwanese-German Tu Cheng Chun-chu (涂鄭春菊), an agent for a German company providing parts for four mine-sweepers Germany sold to Taiwan, and ask her to leave Taiwan as soon as possible before Yin's body was discovered on Dec. 10, 1993, off Ilan County?

  Chen did not seem to have been authorized by General Chuang to make the move. He must have received instructions from someone above Chuang.

  TT: Do you feel that the renewed investigation into the Yin murder as well as weapon purchase scandals connected to it is a part of a larger power struggle? That sentiment was strongest in the first week following the highly-publicized visit made by you and lawmaker Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) to Kuo Li-heng in his prison cell in late July.

  Li: I do have the same feeling. Up to now, certain people still want to manipulate the case to their advantage. I can feel the manipulation through the exposure of so-called "new clues" to the case which are unfavorable to certain government officials.

  But government officials victimized as a result of such disclosures do not have to over-react. Minister of National Defense Wu Shih-wen (伍世文), for instance, did not need to deny that he knew some people connected with the case. His acquaintance with these people does not mean he could have been involved in the case.

  TT: Captain Yin had submitted a report to naval leadership about the flaws he discovered with the Lafayette-class frigate during his inspection trip to France three months before his murder. Do you know anything about the report?

  Li: I did not have access to the report. But my husband told me privately about some of his discoveries. He cited, for example, problems with the design of guns mounted on the frigate.

  He told me that the frigate was not able to sustain the recoil force that a certain gun made when fired. It was a serious problem.

  I have pointed this out for quite some time, but nobody seems to care.
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