The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office today indicted actor Lee Wei (李威) and 12 others for the death of a woman at a Buddhist retreat.
The 13 people are facing charges for causing bodily injuries leading to death, complicity in causing bodily injuries leading to death, and coercion.
A woman, surnamed Tsai (蔡), member of a religious group, was found dead in the group’s meeting place in July last year.
Photo: Taipei Times
Lee cooperated with prosecutors as a witness and provided testimony on other suspects, leading to prosecutors seeking to reduce or waive his sentence under the Witness Protection Act (證人保護法).
As per Article 14 of the act, prosecutors requested the court to reduce Lee’s sentence, as he provided key testimony and evidence of crimes committed by others indicted in the case.
In July last year, police received a report that a woman was lying motionless in a first-floor property on a residential block on Siwei Road in Taipei’s Daan District (大安).
When police officers arrived to the scene, they found Tsai with no signs of life and her body covered in bruises.
A subsequent autopsy determined she died of rhabdomyolysis, a complex medical condition involving the rapid dissolution of damaged or injured skeletal muscle.
The religious group’s leader, Buddhism writer Wang Yun (王薀), allegedly forced the woman to kneel in front of a Buddha statue as a form of repentance, before she collapsed from exhaustion, the investigation found.
After that, religious group’s chief executive, surnamed Wu (吳), a woman surnamed Chiang (姜) and Lee pushed Tsai’s body in a trolley from a restaurant to the property and left it there, surveillance video footage showed.
In the subsequent investigation, several suspects were detained, with prosecutors summoning Lee for questioning three times.
On Monday last week, Lee and his wife, surnamed Chien (簡), were released on bail for NT$300,000 (US$9,141) and NT$150,000 respectively.
The case would be heard by the Taipei District Court.
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.
Additional reporting by CNA
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