The Control Yuan this week ordered a re-examination of polygraph tests conducted by Lee Fu-kuo (李復國), who was the Criminal Investigation Bureau’s polygraph testing expert and who presided over a number of wrongful conviction cases.
Controversy surrounding Lee and his judgements have cast doubt on the reliability and scientific validity of polygraph testing and have led to questions of whether wrongful prosecution arose from human error or unethical conduct.
A Control Yuan committee approved an investigation report on Wednesday looking into the issue and mandated the Executive Yuan open a probe into cases dating back to 1988 as presided over by Lee, who in 2008 retired from his position at the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau.
The most prominent conviction that resulted from Lee’s polygraph assessment was Chiang Kuo-ching (江國慶), a 21-year-old who was serving his compulsory military service at an air force headquarters office and who was executed in 1997 after being wrongly identified as the man who raped and killed a five-year-old girl. He was posthumously acquitted in 2011.
Chiang and his family had maintained his innocence and said that he was tortured and forced to sign a “confession.”
Lee was the polygraph expert at the bureau during the investigation and conducted the testing on a number of suspects at the office.
Chiang was reportedly the only suspect who failed the polygraph test administered by Lee.
Air force officials and the military tribunal fingered Chiang as the main suspect and he was convicted of the crime and sentenced to death less than one year after the investigation began.
In another case involving the theft of ammunition at a Taoyuan military base in 1999, officials focused their investigation on three soldiers who reportedly failed Lee’s polygraph tests.
However, tests by another expert from the police agency cleared them.
In 2000, four men were charged over the theft based on physical evidence, thereby clearing the three accused soldiers.
Control Yuan members Wang Mei-yu (王美玉) and Chang Kui-mei (仉桂美), who wrote the report, said their findings cast doubt on the use of polygraph testing in judicial investigations, saying that results can be interpreted subjectively and are prone to human error.
“We found there is no standard procedure and no regulations for polygraph testing. The use of the results in criminal trials infringes on the rights of the accused and violates other human rights issues,” Wang said.
A domestically developed “suicide drone,” also known as a loitering munition, would be tested and evaluated in July, and could enter mass production next year, Taiwan’s weapons developer said on Wednesday. The yet-to-be-named drone was among nine drone models unveiled by the National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) on Tuesday. The drone has been dubbed the “Taiwanese switchblade” by Chinese-language media, due to its similarity to the US-made AeroVironment Switchblade 300, which has been used by Ukraine in counterattacks during Russia’s invasion. It has a range of more than 10km, a flight time of more than 15 minutes, and an electro-optical
OFFLINE: People who do not wish to register can get the money from select ATMs using their bank card, ID number and National Health Insurance card number Online registration for NT$6,000 (US$196.32) cash payments drawn from last year’s tax surplus is to open today for eligible people whose national ID or permanent residency number ends in either a zero or a one, the Ministry of Finance said on Monday. Officials from the ministry revealed which days Taiwanese and eligible foreigners would be able to register for the cash payments at a joint news conference with the Ministry of Digital Affairs. Online registration is to open tomorrow for those whose number ends in a two or three; on Friday for those that end in a four or five: on Saturday
Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) officials are investigating why a Starlux Airlines flight to Penang, Malaysia, returned to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport nearly two hours after takeoff yesterday morning. The airline said in a statement that Flight JX721 to Penang took off from Taoyuan airport at 9:20am. “After the dashboard showed a signal of an abnormality in the hydraulic system, the captain followed standard operating procedures and returned the flight to Taoyuan airport for safety precautions,” the airline said, adding that the flight landed safely at the airport at 11:04am. The airline arranged for the passengers to have lunch after the flight landed and
TECH PROGRAM: A US official said that an important part of the delegation’s trip would be to meet with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co executives The US is to send officials in charge of chip development to Taiwan, Japan and South Korea to promote cooperation in the global semiconductor supply chain, the US Department of Commerce said on Tuesday. Chips Program Office Director Michael Schmidt announced the visit, which marks the first time officials from the office are to visit the three nations since it was set up in September last year. “As semiconductors and technologies continue to evolve, the United States will keep working with allies and partners to develop coordinated strategies to ensure that malign actors cannot use the latest technologies to undermine our collective
RSS