Agricultural blogger Lin Yu-hung (林裕紘) was detained and held incommunicado by the Taoyuan District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday on numerous charges involving hoax death threats which he enlisted others to send to him amid controversies related to a government-funded egg import program.
Lin is suspected of violating the Criminal Code by making false accusations, and engaging in forgery and intimidation, the office said following his arrest at the Taoyuan airport after returning from Austria.
The court granted a prosecutors’ request to detain Lin after an overnight detention hearing, agreeing that detention was necessary to prevent him from destroying evidence and fabricating testimony with others, explaining that despite confessing to the hoax, several of Lin’s actions remain suspicious.
Photo: Chou Min-hung, Taipei Times
When asked to hand in his cellphone and laptop, Lin said he “lost” them in Austria, the court said.
The court also said that according to Lin’s friend and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) staffer Hsu Che-pin (許哲賓), who was arrested and detained on Monday last week over his involvement in the case, Lin asked Hsu to delete their call and message records.
Lin last month said that he would stop posting about the imported eggs after receiving death threats, and filed a lawsuit against the “blackmail sender.”
However, hours after police summoned Hsu for questioning and searched his apartment for allegedly sending the threats, Lin on Tuesday last week wrote on Facebook that the threats were fabricated.
He said he had enlisted Hsu to send the death threats as he could no longer bear the stress of reporting on agricultural issues after being the target of numerous smears.
According to local media reports, Lin, who left Taiwan for a 17-day trip to Austria on Oct. 1, contacted police on Friday to inform them that he would return to the country on Saturday.
More accomplices could be involved in the scheme, after Hsu admitted creating fake accounts to blackmail Lin through channels of his own and “unknown individuals,” the court said, adding that Lin is well aware of Hsu’s background.
A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokesperson on Tuesday last week suggested that Lin joined the party in 2020 “for specific political purposes.”
The party revoked his membership on Friday, and a day later held a press conference at which the spokesperson for Vice President William Lai’s (賴清德) presidential campaign accused the KMT of being behind the case.
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