Huang Ping-fan (黃屏藩) was in elementary school in 1959, when his parents and five others were convicted of murdering a man inside his parents’ Taipei hotel.
The case, known as the “Wuhan Hotel incident,” is considered by some to be one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice during the White Terror era from 1949 to 1987.
Nearly six decades later, on Dec. 6, Huang, now 69, and his 90-year-old mother, Yang Hsun-chun (楊薰春), who is the last surviving defendant, handed a petition to the Presidential Office to overturn the conviction.
Photo: CNA
They are placing their hopes in President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who backed the passage on Dec. 5 of the Act on Promoting Transitional Justice (促進轉型正義條例).
Huang said that although he was brought up in a wealthy family and his parents ran one of the most luxurious hotels in Taipei, after the incident, he was labeled the son of a “communist spy” and a murderer.
“I hope President Tsai proves that her administration is different by how she handles this case,” Huang said.
His family petitioned for a review of the case during former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) term, but to no avail, he said, adding that the passage of the act was a “ray of hope.”
In July 1959, Wuhan Hotel manager Yao Chia-chien (姚嘉薦) was found dead inside the hotel. Police and prosecutors originally ruled it a suicide, but months later, the Criminal Investigation Bureau decided he was killed.
Seven people, including Huang’s father, Huang Hsueh-wen (黃學文), Yang, several employees, a guest at the hotel and National Taiwan University professor Chen Hua-chou (陳華洲) were arrested and charged with murder.
The bureau allegedly tortured the seven defendants to elicit confessions of being communist spies or murderers. Despite being convicted of murder and jailed, all seven defendants between 1960 and 1976 repeatedly stated their innocence and appealed the sentence.
Former Control Yuan member Tao Pai-chuan (陶百川) listed the incident and the “Lei Chen (雷震) incident” as the two most infamous miscarriages of justice in Taiwan.
Some have speculated that then-president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) might have been behind the bureau’s intervention, because Chen Hua-chou was a close ally of Lei, a high-ranking Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) official and adviser to Chiang, who was imprisoned for treason because of his support for democratic reforms.
Others have speculated the hotel case was the result of clashes between the bureau and the National Police Agency.
The case raised too many questions, such as the disappearance of the original forensic report that ruled Yao’s death a suicide after it was sent to Japan for further examination, Huang Ping-fan said.
Huang Hsueh-wen was sentenced to death multiple times, but in 1974 was granted medical parole and fled to the US.
After his case was dismissed in 1995, Huang Hsueh-wen returned to Taiwan to demand redress from the bureau for extorting confession by torture.
The Supreme Court later rescinded the dismissal and sentenced Huang Hsueh-wen to life imprisonment, prompting him to flee once again.
Many files have been lost over the decades, Formosa Statehood Movement founder David Chou (周威霖) said, adding that the case might need to be resolved through political rather than judicial means.
After meeting with Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General Yao Jen-to (姚人多), Chou said he believes the case is finally being taken seriously.
Presidential Office spokeswoman Chang Wen-lan (張文蘭) said after the meeting that the Executive Yuan is required by the new law to establish an ad hoc committee to implement transitional justice measures to address matters such as the Wuhan Hotel case and others.
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