Taiwan murder convict walks free after decade on death row

Source: Straits Times (26 October 2017)

http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/taiwan-convict-walks-free-after-decade-on-death-row

TAIPEI (AFP) - A Taiwanese man who spent more than a decade on death row walked free Thursday (Oct 26) after being acquitted of murder in a retrial, boosting calls for the abolition of capital punishment.

Cheng Hsing-tse was condemned to death in 2002 after being found guilty of shooting a police officer during a gun battle in a karaoke parlour.

The death penalty was confirmed in 2006, when he had exhausted the appeal process.

But he was granted a retrial last year and released on bail when new evidence cast doubt on his conviction, suggesting he may have been tortured into admitting the crime.

The high court in central Taichung delivered its decision Thursday, overturning the original guilty verdict, saying Cheng's confession may have been forced and that evidence pointed to another culprit firing the fatal shots.

"I've waited for this acquittal for 15 years," Cheng told reporters on Thursday outside the court after the verdict.

Cheng was a follower of gangster Luo Wu-hsiung and was caught up in the gun battle after Luo fired a pistol at the ceiling and at bottles in a karaoke room in protest at the parlour's service.

Police stormed the venue and shots were fired by both sides, killing Luo and an officer named Su Hsien-pi.

Earlier verdicts found that Cheng fired the bullets that killed Su.

But judges on Thursday said after considering evidence of the firing positions, it could not be ruled out that Luo was the killer.

The high court said in a statement that Cheng's face had shown "obvious new bruising" during interrogations, "suggesting his confession wasn't voluntary".

The Control Yuan - the government's highest watchdog - recommended the supreme court prosecutor's office to apply for a retrial after investigating Cheng's case in 2014.

It said police forced a confession from Cheng "by means of torture" and certain autopsy findings were ignored.

Taiwan resumed capital punishment in 2010 after a five-year hiatus. Executions are reserved for serious crimes including aggravated murder.

The last execution was in May last year of Cheng Chieh, a former college student who killed four people in a stabbing spree on a subway in 2014.

There are currently 43 convicts on death row in Taiwan, according to campaign group Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty.

Rights groups including Amnesty International have urged Taiwan's government to abandon the practice, but polls show a majority of the public still support it.

Court acquits man after controversial death penalty case

Source: Asia One (2 September 2015)

http://news.asiaone.com/news/crime/court-acquits-man-after-controversial-death-penalty-case

TAIPEI, Taiwan - A defendant in a controversial death penalty case was declared innocent after his ninth appeal yesterday, exactly 20 years after his alleged crime.

Hsu Tzu-chiang is one of three men sentenced to death in 2000 for the murder of a real estate businessman on Sept. 1, 1995.

Activists and Hsu's lawyers criticised the ruling on grounds that the sentence had been based on the confessions of his co-defendants.

The Taiwan High Court yesterday overturned Hsu's seven death sentences and two life sentences, declaring him not guilty.

The case had already gone through eight appeals on repeated retrials.

Hsu, in disbelief, turned to a nearby friend after the announcement and asked, "Is it not guilty?" Upon confirming the verdict, the defendant embraced his tearful mother.

"I have waited for 20 years," he said to a crowd of supporters waiting outside the high court. The sentence can still be appealed.

Hsu and two other men were sentenced to death for the alleged murder of real-estate businessman Huang Chun-shu in 1995.

The victim was kidnapped outside his home; after his murder, his disfigured body was abandoned in New Taipei City, and then Taipei County.

During the trial, defendants Huang Chun-chi and Chen Yi-lung were sentenced based on forensic evidence, while Hsu was convicted based on their testimony.

A fourth defendant had escaped to Thailand, where he died.

Activists have criticised Hsu's sentence and said that there was security footage proving he was elsewhere during the events.

The Judicial Reform Foundation has called the case deeply flawed, saying it demonstrates the need to implement a jury system in Taiwan to reduce judicial bias.

After the initial sentencing, one of the two defendants said he had accused Hsu as a way of getting revenge and that Hsu was innocent.

In 2001, Taiwan's Control Yuan released a report on Hsu's conviction that condemned the sentencing.

Hsu's case is one of the longest-running murder cases in Taiwan's history, and his acquittal falls exactly 20 years after the alleged murder. Huang Chun-chi and Chen Yi-lung remain on death row.

Iran: Good news points to legal flaws

The acquittal of an Iranian teenager who killed a man when he attacked her has highlighted the need for "urgent legal reforms" to protect juveniles accused of a crime, according to Amnesty International.

Mahabad Fatehi, known as Nazanin, was cleared of murder by a Tehran court on 14 January. In March 2005, when she was 17 years old, she stabbed one man in a group of three who attempted to rape her and her 15 year-old neice in a Tehran park.

In January 2006 Nazanin was convicted of pre-meditated murder and sentenced to death.

Following an international campaign against her death sentence, including a global petition organised by Canadian singer and former beauty contestant Nazanin Afshin-Jam, who was born in Iran, the Supreme Court ordered a retrial in May 2006.

Amnesty International said the latest court verdict highlighted the need for changes to the law to ensure people accused of crimes committed before they were 18 years old could not be sentenced to death.

For several years Iran has considered legislation that would ban the use of the death penalty against juvenile offenders. Amnesty International said a reform bill had "not yet been approved by the Council of Guardians, which vets Iran's legislation for conformity with Islamic principles".

The human rights organisation said Iran and Pakistan were the only countries in the world to execute child offenders in 2006, and Iran had executed at least 21 child offenders since 1990.

But as a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Iran had committed not to execute juvenile offenders.

Stay of execution for musician

In a second case, Sina Paymard, who was convicted of a murder committed when he was 16, was reportedly granted a stay of execution by the Head of the Judiciary.

Sina Paymard was scheduled to be executed in September 2006, but he was spared at the gallows by the family of his victim. Family members were reportedly moved to mercy when he played the ney, a Middle Eastern flute.

In November 2006 his lawyer requested a review of the case and submitted new evidence that Sina Paymard suffered from mental illness.

Twenty-three more
Amnesty International reported that at least 23 other child offenders are reportedly on death row in Iran.

In December, the organisation said that Hossein Gharabaghloo was at risk of imminent execution for a murder committed when he was 16. The Supreme Court had confirmed his death sentence on 13 December, and AI said "he could now be executed at any time".

Related story:
Iran world leader executing juveniles -- 04 October, 2006