The Ministry of Justice yesterday said it would review the case of a New Taipei City man who was sentenced on Tuesday to life in prison for repeatedly raping the daughter of his live-in partner and later murdering the girl.
Amid concern by lawmakers that the latest sentence, which was changed from the death penalty, was too lenient, Vice Minister of Justice Tsai Pi-yu (蔡碧玉) said the case is still under legal proceedings and has yet to receive a final ruling.
After the court hands down its final verdict, the ministry will ask the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office to weigh the possibility of an appeal or review.
The man, surnamed Hsu (許), 58, started living with the victim’s mother 13 years ago and began sexually assaulting the girl twice a week for a period of five years since 2006.
After her mother committed suicide, the girl, accompanied by her biological father, reported the sexual assaults to police on Sept. 19, 2011.
She also moved out to live with her biological father.
Hsu, who had been imprisoned previously for sexually assaulting members of his family, pleaded with the victim to drop the case, but her father persuaded her not to.
Hsu then sneaked into the victim’s house on Nov. 29, 2011, and strangled her to death with a steel wire, arranging the scene to make it look like she had committed suicide.
The district court first handed down the death sentence to Hsu last year, which the high court upheld, as well as a single conviction for sexual assault.
The Supreme Court earlier this year revoked the death sentence and ordered a retrial, after which he was given a life sentence.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS