The High Court on Thursday upheld the conviction of a Chinese man who had ordered the killing of four people at sea when he was captain of a Taiwanese fishing boat, and lengthened his prison sentence.
In the fourth appeal of the case, Wang Fengyu (汪峰裕) was sentenced to 26 years in prison on four counts of murder and was fined NT$100,000 (US$3,114) for illegal possession of a weapon, a statement released by the Kaohsiung branch of the High Court said on Thursday.
The case dates back to 2012, when Wang was captain of the Kaohsiung-registered longliner Ping Shin No. 101 (屏新101號), which had allegedly encountered suspected pirates off Somalia on Sept. 29 that year.
Photo: Taipei Times
Wang had ordered two Pakistani security guards who were on board to kill the four men who had approached on a smaller vessel, the court statement said.
The boats were in the Indian Ocean, about 595km southeast of the Somalian capital of Mogadishu, the court said.
In a YouTube video that supposedly captured the killings at sea, a cluster of four boats could be seen in the area.
On the large fishing boat, two men were seen firing shots at people in the water. Then the person at the helm of the fishing boat took one of the guns and began shooting at the people in the water, who had fallen overboard when their boat was rammed.
Wang was arrested in August 2020 after he arrived in Kaohsiung on another vessel.
He was found guilty of the four murders when the case was tried in the Kaohsiung District Court the following year.
He was sentenced to 26 years in prison, but he appealed the ruling, which was subsequently upheld by the High Court.
The case was then taken to the Supreme Court, which ordered a retrial in 2022, citing discrepancies in the evidence.
Since then, there have been multiple appeals and retrials, with the convictions swinging between one and four counts of murder.
Thursday’s ruling by the Kaohsiung branch of the High Court extended the 13-year prison sentence handed to Wang in the first two retrials by the same court, when he was found guilty of only one count of murder.
The latest ruling can still be appealed.
No credible information ever surfaced about the identity or whereabouts of the two Pakistanis who were working on the Ping Shin No. 101 at the time of the murders.
Reports about the victims have also been sketchy, as no bodies were ever recovered.
Taiwan is to commence mass production of the Tien Kung (天弓, “Sky Bow”) III, IV and V missiles by the second quarter of this year if the legislature approves the government’s NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.78 billion) special defense budget, an official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said that the advanced systems are expected to provide crucial capabilities against ballistic and cruise missiles for the proposed “T-Dome,” an advanced, multi-layered air defense network. The Tien Kung III is an air defense missile with a maximum interception altitude of 35km. The Tien Kung IV and V
The disruption of 941 flights in and out of Taiwan due to China’s large-scale military exercises was no accident, but rather the result of a “quasi-blockade” used to simulate creating the air and sea routes needed for an amphibious landing, a military expert said. The disruptions occurred on Tuesday and lasted about 10 hours as China conducted live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait. The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said the exercises affected 857 international flights and 84 domestic flights, affecting more than 100,000 travelers. Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the government-sponsored Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said the air
Taiwan lacks effective and cost-efficient armaments to intercept rockets, making the planned “T-Dome” interception system necessary, two experts said on Tuesday. The concerns were raised after China’s military fired two waves of rockets during live-fire drills around Taiwan on Tuesday, part of two-day exercises code-named “Justice Mission 2025.” The first wave involved 17 rockets launched at 9am from Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province, according to Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升) of the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence at the Ministry of National Defense. Those rockets landed 70 nautical miles (129.6km) northeast of Keelung without flying over Taiwan,
A strong continental cold air mass is to bring pollutants to Taiwan from tomorrow, the Ministry of Environment said today, as it issued an “orange” air quality alert for most of the country. All of Taiwan except for Hualien and Taitung counties is to be under an “orange” air quality alert tomorrow, indicating air quality that is unhealthy for sensitive groups. In China, areas from Shandong to Shanghai have been enveloped in haze since Saturday, the ministry said in a news release. Yesterday, hourly concentrations of PM2.5 in these areas ranged from 65 to 160 micrograms per cubic meter (mg/m³), and pollutants were
RSS