The Chiayi District Court on Wednesday opened proceedings against a teenager accused of poisoning a classmate with borax, a chemical component used in laundry detergent.
The second-year student at a junior-high school in Chiayi City is accused of poisoning her classmate on three occasions at a gym over a week in September last year, the court filing showed.
The judge should consider charges of attempted murder brought by the prosecutors against the student, the classmate’s mother told a news conference, adding that she had rejected the court’s suggestion that the involved parties should seek arbitration.
Her daughter has lost 8kg after the alleged poisoning and frequently experiences vertigo and digestive problems, the mother said.
Despite multiple visits to a local hospital over the past few months, doctors could not determine the cause of the conditions, and the family initially thought that she was pretending to be ill so she can skip class, the mother said.
In December last year, a friend of the accused student told the mother that she had acted as a lookout in the poisoning plot, the mother said.
On three occasions, the student allegedly slipped a small dose of borax into the victim’s water bottle, the mother said, citing the friend of the accused.
The incident was reported to the school, and after talking to the accused student and two other students who were allegedly involved, teachers confirmed that the student had attempted to poison her classmate, the filing showed.
In group messages on social media obtained by the victim’s mother, the three allegedly involved students discuss the poisoning plot, according to the filing.
The messages include discussions about the amount of poison they want to give to the classmate, that their intention is to kill her and that she would at least have health problems in the months after digesting the poison, the filing showed.
The victim’s mother said that her family considered reconciling with the accused student, but that she had not shown remorse during talks mediated by school officials.
In court, the accused student seemed indifferent to the proceedings and has told the defense attorney that the plot was “just a prank,” the mother said.
“I am not keeping quiet anymore. I am telling the press about the case because I think [the accused student] will strike again,” she said.
Asked for response to the news conference, the court said that the judge in the case “does not believe there is sufficient evidence to support an attempted murder charge.”
However, the accused student was “placed under juvenile protective measures,” the court said, adding that an arbitration process might lead to a compensation payment to the victim.
A school spokesman said that the family of the accused student had twice apologized to the classmate’s family.
A school official during the Lunar New Year holiday visited the classmate’s family and learned that examination results showed no residue of the alleged poisoning, he said.
The Chiayi Department of Health said that ingesting borax might cause nausea, diarrhea and irritation.
In large doses, borax poisoning might be lethal, as it can strongly affect the circulatory system, it said.
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