Court hearings began yesterday for defendants charged over the Kaohsiung gas explosions on July 31 and Aug. 1 last year, with public officials responsible for the supervision and inspection of subsurface pipelines all pleading not guilty.
The proceedings took place at the Kaohsiung District Court yesterday morning, with the initial phase centered on three Kaohsiung City Government officials, who are among 12 people indicted over one of the worse disasters involving public utility infrastructure in the nation’s history.
Summoned to testify were Chao Chien-chiao (趙建喬), head of the city government’s Maintenance Office of Public Works Bureau, along with an engineer and a technician from the Maintenance Office, Chiu Ping-wen (邱炳文) and Yang Tsung-jen (楊宗仁).
The three city government officials, along with pipeline company LCY Chemical Corp (李長榮化工) chairman Lee Bowei (李謀偉), other LCY employees and staff of petrochemical transporter China General Terminal and Distribution Corp (華運倉儲), were indicted on offenses against public safety, professional negligence causing death and other charges.
It was found that the explosions that ripped up entire sections of road and wrecked buildings were mainly caused by leaks in a section of an LCY-owned underground pipeline carrying propene. The blasts killed 32 people and injured more than 300.
Under questioning, the three defendants, with the help of their lawyers, said that they had followed the terms of their engineering contracts and city bylaws when conducting tests for approval when the underground pipelines and culverts were laid in 1992, as well as for all safety inspections since that time.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS