The Taoyuan District Prosecutors’ Office on Tuesday indicted four people for abandoning an unconscious migrant worker instead of taking him to hospital.
According to the indictment, on Oct. 19 last year, police received a report that a Thai worker surnamed Pan (潘) was found unconscious, foaming from the mouth on the side of an industrial road in Hsinchu County.
The man was taken to a hospital and on Oct. 21 was pronounced dead from complications related to a head injury, the prosecutors’ office said.
Photo: Yu Jui-jen, Taipei Times
An investigation by local police and the National Immigration Agency found that Pan worked at a nearby livestock farm illegally after he absconded from his contracted job.
Another undocumented Thai migrant worker, identified by his surname Wei (威), who also worked at the farm, disappeared after Pan was found, the investigation showed.
Wei, who was tracked down and taken in for questioning, told authorities that Pan had collapsed while working, the indictment said.
Their employer, surnamed Wei (魏), and his wife, surnamed Huang (黃), were afraid that their employment of undocumented foreign workers would be discovered and instead of rushing Pan to a hospital, they called a taxi driver, surnamed Yao (姚), to take him to the industrial road and dump him there, the worker said.
The employer and his wife changed Pan’s clothes to conceal his employment at the farm and burned evidence, including his clothes and mobile phone, the indictment said.
Yao was later asked to pose as a passerby who found Pan by the roadside, it said.
The employer, his wife, the worker Wei and Yao were all indicted in the case.
The autopsy report showed that Pan had an intracranial hematoma caused by trauma to the back of his head. The swelling in his brain and hemorrhage in his brainstem led to pneumonia complications, which caused his death, the indictment said.
Pan also had cirrhosis, which was an exacerbating factor in his death, it said.
Because Pan was at high risk of death, the case did not constitute abandonment resulting in death, prosecutors said.
The employers are in police custody, while the worker Wei and Yao have been released on bail, the prosecutors’ office said.
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