A 27-year-old inmate was arrested in New Taipei City on Tuesday after failing to return to prison in Hualien County following an approved temporary release, in the third such incident in a year.
Lu Tsung-lung (魯宗龍) was arrested by the Railway Police Bureau’s criminal investigation unit at about 5pm in an Internet cafe in New Taipei City’s Sijhih District (汐止), the bureau said.
Lu was given permission to leave the prison to see his family in Kinmen County on Saturday last week, but had to return by 8pm on Monday, Zihciang Minimum-Security Prison deputy warden Chen Chang-mu (陳長木) said.
Photo courtesy of Criminal Investigation Bureau
Although Lu’s return was postponed because his return flight was delayed, he should have taken a train to Hualien after arriving in Taipei, Chen said.
The prison contacted Lu’s family, but they said they did not know his whereabouts, and after informing the Hualien County District Prosecutors’ Office that Lu had exceeded the limit of his temporary release, it issued a warrant for his arrest, Chen said.
After reviewing footage from more than 100 security cameras in Taipei and Hualien, investigators spotted him at the airport, and then buying a train ticket at Taipei’s Nangang Station (南港). He was later seen getting off a train in Sijhih.
Lu was sentenced by the Fuchien Kinmen District Court to two years, eight months in prison for charges related to fraud and theft. He was transferred to the Hualien prison on Aug. 30, 2021.
Lu has been granted temporary release five times and had less than one year of his sentence remaining before this week’s incident, Chen said, adding that Lu had applied to be released on parole in November last year, but was denied.
The incident is the third in the past 12 months of an inmate absconding while on temporary leave from the Zihciang Minimum-Security Prison.
Kang Yu-hao (康育豪), who was granted temporary leave in March last year, remains missing, authorities said.
He allegedly slashed a person with a knife in July last year.
Twenty-nine year-old Hsu Ya-lun (許亞倫) was arrested on Aug. 28 last year, six days after he failed to report back to the prison.
The frequency of inmates on temporary release failing to return has sparked concern over loopholes in the Statute of Open Prisons (外役監條例).
The Ministry of Justice on Tuesday evening said that the statute should be amended and requested that correctional institutions do a better job of vetting applicants before release.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS