The Kaohsiung Prosecutors’ Office on Monday indicted a Chinese sea captain over his alleged involvement in the killing of four pirates at sea in 2012, while serving as the captain of a Taiwanese fishing vessel.
The suspect, identified by the media as 43-year-old Wang Fengyu (汪峰裕), was charged with homicide and breaches of the Controlling Guns, Ammunition and Knives Act (槍砲彈藥刀械管制條例), the indictment read.
Wang asked two Pakistani mercenaries that he hired as acting captain of the Kaohsiung-registered Ping Shin No. 101 to fire on and kill four suspected Somalian pirates in the Indian Ocean off the Somalian coast on Sept. 29, 2012, the indictment said.
Despite charging Wang with homicide, the prosecutors recommended that the court grant him leniency, as the alleged pirates opened fire on his vessel first.
Wang said he ordered that the four be shot so that they could not flee and ask other pirates to hijack his ship, prosecutors said.
In Taiwan, homicide carries a minimum 10-year sentence and is punishable by the death penalty.
Wang has been in custody since Aug. 22, when the latest ship under his charge, the Seychelles-flagged Indian Star, docked at the Port of Kaohsiung and he was arrested.
Wang was hired by a Kaohsiung company to serve as acting captain of the Ping Shin No. 101 in 2011, prosecutors said.
On Sept. 29, 2012, the vessel was operating in the Indian Ocean about 595km southeast of Mogadishu when a ship with four men fired on it, the Kaohsiung-registered Chun I No. 217 and two unidentified fishing boats, prosecutors said.
In retaliation, one of the ships rammed the pirate ship, capsizing it and throwing the four men into the sea, the prosecutors said.
The four had no way to defend themselves, but Wang instructed the mercenaries to shoot and kill them, they said.
The investigation was opened after a video clip of the fatal shooting circulated online in August 2014.
In it, a man believed to be the captain is heard giving orders in Chinese to the crew over a loudspeaker system as 40 bullets are fired at four unarmed men in the water. The shooters cannot be seen.
At the end, the victims are seen floating face down in the water, blood spreading outward, and those filming pose on the deck as their vessel continues on its course.
The Coast Guard Administration filed a report with the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office after the video went viral.
Although prosecutors tried to track down Wang, he never reported for questioning, so a warrant for his arrest was issued on Dec. 28, 2018.
Wang was quoted as admitting to prosecutors that he was involved in “tracking down pirates” and the shootings were done in “self-defense.”
Wang is a Chinese citizen and the incident occurred in the Indian Ocean, but he can be prosecuted in Taiwan, as it occurred on a Taiwanese vessel.
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
Travel agencies in Taiwan are working to secure alternative flights for travelers bound for New Zealand for the Lunar New Year holiday, as Air New Zealand workers are set to strike next week. The airline said that it has confirmed that the planned industrial action by its international wide-body cabin crew would go ahead on Thursday and Friday next week. While the Auckland-based carrier pledged to take reasonable measures to mitigate the impact of the workers’ strike, an Air New Zealand flight arriving at Taipei from Auckland on Thursday and another flight departing from Taipei for Auckland on Saturday would have to
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS