Actor Lee Wei (李威) was released on bail on Monday after being named as a suspect in the death of a woman whose body was found in the meeting place of a Buddhist group in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) last year, prosecutors said.
Lee, 44, was released on NT$300,000 (US$9,148) bail, while his wife, surnamed Chien (簡), was released on NT$150,000 bail after both were summoned to give statements regarding the woman’s death.
The home of Lee, who has retreated from the entertainment business in the past few years, was also searched by prosecutors and police earlier on Monday.
Photo: CNA
Lee was questioned three times last month as a witness in the case.
Police received a report in late July last year that a woman was lying motionless in a first-floor property on a residential block on Siwei Road in Taipei.
Police found the woman, surnamed Tsai (蔡), a member of the religious group that met at the property, with no vital signs.
An autopsy determined that she died of rhabdomyolysis, a complex medical condition involving the rapid dissolution of damaged or injured skeletal muscle.
It is most often caused by direct traumatic injury, according to the National Library of Medicine, a Web site run by the US National Institutes of Health.
Surveillance video footage showed Lee, the religious group’s chief executive, surnamed Wu (吳), a woman surnamed Chiang (姜) and Tsai attending a study session at a restaurant in Taipei on the evening of July 24 amid Typhoon Gaemi, prosecutors said.
The footage showed that after the meeting, Wu, Lee and Chiang pushed Tsai’s body in a trolley from the restaurant to the property and left it there without calling emergency services, prosecutors said.
After a probe and two rounds of searches, prosecutors and police named Wu, Buddhism writer Wang Yun (王薀) — who was the group’s spiritual leader — and others as suspects in Tsai’s death.
Four of the suspects, including Wang, have been detained due to their suspected involvement since last month.
Chinese-language media reported that Tsai had been an accountant for the group, whose members were mostly white-collar professionals.
After her death, Tsai’s bank accounts, which combined had more than NT$2 million, were empty, the reports said.
Lee, who rose to fame after starring in the drama Toast Boy’s Kiss (吐司男之吻) in the 2000s, became a follower of Buddhism after leaving the entertainment business.
Taipei has once again made it to the top 100 in Oxford Economics’ Global Cities Index 2025 report, moving up five places from last year to 60. The annual index, which was published last month, evaluated 1,000 of the most populated metropolises based on five indices — economics, human capital, quality of life, environment and governance. New York maintained its top spot this year, placing first in the economics index thanks to the strength of its vibrant financial industry and economic stability. Taipei ranked 263rd in economics, 44th in human capital, 15th in quality of life, 284th for environment and 75th in governance,
Greenpeace yesterday said that it is to appeal a decision last month by the Taipei High Administrative Court to dismiss its 2021 lawsuit against the Ministry of Economic Affairs over “loose” regulations governing major corporate electricity consumers. The climate-related lawsuit — the first of its kind in Taiwan — sought to require the government to enforce higher green energy thresholds on major corporations to reduce emissions in light of climate change and an uptick in extreme weather. The suit, filed by Greenpeace East Asia, the Environmental Jurists Association and four individual plaintiffs, was dismissed on May 8 following four years of litigation. The
A former officer in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) who witnessed the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre has warned that Taiwan could face a similar fate if China attempts to unify the country by force. Li Xiaoming (李曉明), who was deployed to Beijing as a junior officer during the crackdown, said Taiwanese people should study the massacre carefully, because it offers a glimpse of what Beijing is willing to do to suppress dissent. “What happened in Tiananmen Square could happen in Taiwan too,” Li told CNA in a May 22 interview, ahead of the massacre’s 36th anniversary. “If Taiwanese students or
The New Taipei City Government would assist relatives of those killed or injured in last month’s car-ramming incident in Sansia District (三峽) to secure compensation, Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said yesterday, two days after the driver died in a hospital. “The city government will do its best to help the relatives of the car crash incident seek compensation,” Hou said. The mayor also said that the city’s Legal Affairs, Education and Social Welfare departments have established a joint mechanism to “provide coordinated assistance” to victims and their families. Three people were killed and 12 injured when a car plowed into schoolchildren and their
RSS