Six convicts suddenly executed in Taiwan on Friday

Want China Times, CNA 2015-06-06

Lo Ying-shay fields questions at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, April 30.
(File photo/Yao Chih-ping)

Taiwan's Ministry of Justice confirmed that six convicts responsible for the combined deaths were executed on Friday.

Justice Minister Lo Ying-shay signed the execution orders on Thursday for the six death row inmates to be put to death on Friday, the ministry said.

Three of the inmates were being held in Taipei prison and the others were incarcerated in Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung prisons.

It was the second time Lo approved the execution of death row convicts since she assumed her post in September 2013. She last signed an execution order in April 2014.

The ministry defended the executions by saying that more than 80% of people in Taiwan are in favor of maintaining the death penalty.

Before the public has reached a consensus and the law in Taiwan is revised to abolish the death penalty, the ministry will continue to enforce the law in the most cautious manner, it said, arguing that there was no reason for blocking the executions.

Deputy Justice Minister Chen Ming-tang said consideration of executing the six started in mid-May when the ministry reviewed the situations of all 48 inmates on death row in Taiwan to see if there were still judicial remedies that applied to them.

The number was cut to 25 after the review, and six were selected based on the severity and brutality of their crimes.

Three of the six death inmates–Cheng Chin-wen, Huang Chu-wan and Wang Hsiu-fang–made extraordinary appeals for stays of execution, but they were rejected by the Supreme Prosecutors Office.

Chen also said that none of the six donated their organs after being put to death.

He acknowledged that the medical establishment and human rights groups still had misgivings about organ donations by death row inmates.

"This was why the ministry has adopted a conservative attitude over the past one or two years and no longer surveyed death row inmates (on their willingness to donate organs)," he said.

Asked if the executions were expedited after the murder of a second-grader by a random attacker at a Taipei elementary school last week, Chen said that "this was not necessarily the case."

The six men executed included Huang Chu-wan, who was convicted for strangling a man and later and burying him alive due to a dispute over an election.

There was also Wang Hsiu-fang, who was convicted for killing a woman and her three-year-old daughter after an argument and later dumping their bodies. Cheng Chin-wen was convicted of killing two people because he couldn't repay the NT$500,000 (US$16,100) debt owed to one of them.

The other three include Wang Yu-lung, who was convicted of killing his former girlfriend and her friend; Wang Chun-chin, who was convicted for robbing taxi drivers, sexually assaulting several female taxi drivers and killing one of them; and Tsao Tian-shou, a taxi driver who was convicted for sexually assaulting a junior high school student and later killing her and dumping her body in a remote area.

After the executions, there are still 42 inmates on death row in Taiwan.

A civic group supporting the abolishment of capital punishment went to the Ministry of Justice on Friday to protest the executions.

Led by Lin Hsin-yi, chief executive officer of the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty , around 30 members raised small white posters emblazoned with the words "find the cause of the crime to fix the illness," and "face the illness together."

They criticized the ministry for "executing the death penalty randomly" to respond to the public outcry after a spate of violent crimes which involved children.

Several people supporting capital punishment were also on hand to confront the alliance members and had planned to throw eggs at the protesters but were stopped by the police.