A New Taipei City woman was yesterday convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 12 years in prison for the drowning death of her 15-year-old learning-disabled nephew, while the High Court reduced the sentences of two people convicted in the 2007 murder of a homeless man as part of an insurance fraud.
The teen’s body was found in the Sanchong District (三重) home of his 39-year-old aunt, surnamed Liu (劉), with his hands and legs bound in ropes.
Liu told the New Taipei District Court that she had used ropes to restrain her nephew because he would not listen to instructions, and that while she had been trying to punish him, she had not meant for him to drown.
The teen reportedly had behavior problems due to his disabilities, and had once set his family’s home on fire while playing with a lighter.
Following the death of his mother, his father last year moved them in with the aunt’s family.
The court said that Liu had used cruel methods to inflict pain and fear as punishment, but as she had admitted her guilt and shown remorse, and the boy’s father had forgiven her, it decided to give her a 12-year term for manslaughter.
Meanwhile, the High Court reduced the sentences of real-estate agent Lee Hsien-chang (李憲璋) and his former girlfriend, surnamed Lien (連), in the second retrial for the insurance-linked murder of a homeless man surnamed Liang (梁).
An investigation found that Lee was saddled with business debts and had plotted with Lien for her to marry Liang (梁) and take out a NT$50 million (US$1.66 million at the current exchange rate) insurance policy on his life.
Lien and Liang went to China for their honeymoon, where Liang was pushed off a mountain cliff.
Lien returned home and filed an insurance claim.
However, the insurer requested a judicial investigation and Liang’s father said that he had questions about the marriage and the accounts of his son’s death, as his son was lame as a result of polio.
Lee, now 47, was convicted on murder and forgery charges, and was sentenced to life in the first retrial, while Lien was sentenced to 10 years and six months.
The High Court yesterday reduced Lee’s term to 17 years and Lien’s to eight.
In other judiciary-related news, the Control Yuan yesterday impeached Hsinchu District Court Judge Wu Chen-fu (吳振富), 50, for alleged improper conduct over his reported demands that a female office assistant give him massages and run personal errands for him.
The Control Yuan cited the findings of an investigation last year by the Judicial Yuan’s Judicial Evaluation Committee, which found that Wu had on four occasions ordered his assistant to give him a massage and had required her to pick up his laundry, pay the family’s utility bills, look for tutors for his children and make travel arrangements for family vacations.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
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