A Vietnamese fisherman who allegedly killed an Indonesian colleague on a Taiwan-flagged fishing vessel on the high seas in April was arrested upon the boat’s return to the Port of Kaohsiung last week, local authorities said on Tuesday.
A team of Criminal Investigation Bureau agents boarded the Feng Kuo No. 616 as soon as the vessel berthed at the port and arrested the migrant worker, the bureau said.
The Kaohsiung District Court approved prosecutors’ request to detain the man on suspicion of homicide, it said.
Photo: Yao Yueh-hung, Taipei Times
The 43-year-old suspect had been locked in a storage room in the ship’s hold by the captain since April 28, when he allegedly killed a 34-year-old crew member, bureau International Criminal Affairs official Su Li-tsung (蘇立琮) told a news conference.
The vessel was sailing about 674 nautical miles (1,248km) off the southeast of Cape Town when the alleged murder took place, Su said.
After locking the suspect in the storage room, the captain sailed to Mauritius to seek help and was granted permission to berth at Port Louis, Su said.
Mauritius did not launch a judicial investigation into the case, because Taiwan-flagged vessels are under the jurisdiction of Taiwan, he added.
Taiwanese police officers normally stationed in South Africa traveled to Mauritius to collect evidence from the fishing boat, before the vessel left Port Louis on May 16, Su said.
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