The Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office today said it decided not to press murder charges against a man convicted of faking a marriage with a high-school student who died in 2023 under suspicious circumstances, citing insufficient evidence.
The man, surnamed Hsia (夏), was found guilty in June last year by the Taichung District Court of forging documents and faking his marriage to an 18-year-old man surnamed Lai (賴) to seize Lai’s NT$500 million (US$15.59 million) inheritance.
On May 4, 2023, Lai was found dead following a fall from Hsia’s 10th-floor apartment building just two hours after the two legally registered their marriage.
Photo: Chang Jui-chen, Taipei Times
The two men allegedly had no relationship prior to the marriage, with Hsia’s father helping Lai’s father organize property agreements to leave behind for his son, the Taichung branch of the High Court said in a second trial in January.
The court upheld a ruling that Hsia must serve 18 months in prison for forging documents that caused a “civil servant to make a false entry in public records.”
Hsia started serving his sentence in February.
Despite the suspicious circumstances around Lai’s death, prosecutors said they did not find sufficient evidence to charge Hsia with murder.
However, the court did say that Hsia “exhibited a high degree of malicious intent and a severe deviation from legal norms.”
Lai’s mother filed a petition to review the case.
The Taichung branch of High Prosecutors’ Office sent the case back to the Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office for further investigation.
Concluding their 10-month investigation, prosecutors said in a news release today that they decided not to charge Hsia and his father with homicide.
Prosecutors believe it is highly likely that Lai took his life, not being under the influence of drugs or alcohol or being controlled by force.
Prosecutors said the conclusion was informed by autopsy reports, medical records, evidence collected during on-site investigations, witness testimony and security camera footage.
Prosecutors believe that Lai, who was 169cm tall, crossed the 128cm-high fence of the balcony by himself.
Grabbing the fence and facing the living room, he fell to his death, in an attempt believed to be suicide.
Prosecutors also said they could not confirm that Lai’s death was caused by an injection of a high amount of potassium chloride or tripotassium phosphate, citing two lab reports from National Taiwan University College of Medicine.
Prosecutors said they had no predetermined stance and did not rule out any possibilities during their evidence-based investigation.
They said they decided not to press murder charges against Hsia and his father based on the principle of presumption of innocence.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
A Taiwanese academic yesterday said that Chinese Ambassador to Denmark Wang Xuefeng (王雪峰) disrespected Denmark and Japan when he earlier this year allegedly asked Japan’s embassy to make Taiwan’s representatives leave an event in Copenhagen. The Danish-language Berlingske on Sunday reported the incident in an article with the headline “The emperor’s birthday ended in drama in Copenhagen: More conflict may be on the way between Denmark and China.” It said that on Feb. 26, the Japanese embassy in Denmark held an event for Japanese Emperor Naruhito’s birthday, with about 200 guests in attendance, including representatives from Taiwan. After addressing the Japanese hosts, Wang
RSS