The Shilin District Court yesterday sentenced Chen Po-yen (陳柏諺), 31, to life in prison for the murder of a Malaysian university student in 2022.
The verdict can be appealed.
The Malaysian student, surnamed Chai (蔡), met Chen on Instagram and was murdered by him one week after they started dating in 2022, prosecutors said.
Photo: Wu Cheng-feng, Taipei Times
Chai, who was 24 years old at the time of her death, was a student at a Taipei university.
During the trial, Chen claimed he and Chai planned to die together and that she had asked him to kill her. He manually strangled Chai, causing her death by asphyxiation, the court said in a press release.
Chen was sentenced to life imprisonment because there was solid evidence that established his crime and he showed no remorse, the court said.
The judges also took into account that he had no criminal record and reports that indicated a potential for remorse through therapy and long-term imprisonment, the court added.
This determination is likely the reason he did not receive the death penalty.
Chai’s body was found in an apartment she rented on Dadong Road in Taipei’s Shilin District (士林) on Oct. 13, 2022, by New Taipei City police after Chen revealed he killed her while being rushed to hospital following what police believed at the time to be a suicide attempt.
An autopsy performed on Chai on Oct. 16 found that she died of suffocation and had a broken neck, prosecutors said.
When Chen was discharged from the hospital the next day, he was arrested and held by police for questioning. At that time he told the police it was an accident and said he had only intended to scare Chai after she refused to repay the NT$99,999 he lent her.
Chen has been in custody since he was arrested.
In November 2022, the Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office indicted Chen on the charge of homicide and asked the court to hand down a severe penalty.
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