There is no video surveillance equipment in the operations room of the Chinchiang-class corvette that accidentally fired a missile that killed a fisherman on Friday, prosecutors said yesterday.
Kaohsiung prosecutors boarded the corvette for a third time since the incident to look for evidence and said no video recording device had been set up in the vessel’s operations room.
There is no surveillance footage of what transpired in the operations room when the missile was fired, Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office Deputy Chief Prosecutor Huang Yuan-kuan (黃元冠) said.
Huang also responded to concerns about collusion after bail was granted to Petty Officer, Second Class Kao Chia-chun (高嘉駿), who launched the missile, and Chief Petty Officer Chen Ming-hsiu (陳銘修), who left Kao unsupervised during what was supposed to be a simulated launch, saying the two noncommissioned officers posed no risk, as they were detained and questioned separately after the incident.
The sailors’ quarters and lockers on the ship have been searched and their mobile phones were confiscated to examine if they had contacted each other after the incident, Huang added.
No evidence has been found pointing to a rumored conspiracy or the allegedly leaking of government secrets, Huang said.
The Ministry of National Defense said human error was the cause of the accidental launch of a Hsiung Feng III missile, which hit a fishing boat near Penghu, killing its captain and injuring three crew members.
It has already said that it would reprimand personnel involved in the event, while prosecutors are investigating the legal responsibilities held by the parties involved in the incident.
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