High-speed train bomber jailed for 22 years

[BalanceOfPower]

High-speed train bomber jailed for 22 years

Associate receives 12-year sentence

Taiwan News, Staff Writer
2014-01-22 03:26 PM

Central News Agency (2014-01-22 15:06:12)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The New Taipei District Court sentenced a man responsible for placing explosives on a high-speed train to 22 years in prison Wednesday.

Hu Tsung-hsien, an attorney, placed the devices on a train last April 12 and at the office of a Kuomintang lawmaker in New Taipei City in the hope of creating massive casualties which would provoke a sharp decline on the futures market, allowing him to make steep profits, prosecutors said.

Hu’s accomplice, taxi driver Chu Ya-tung, received a 12-year sentence. Appeals were still possible.

Chu boarded a northbound train at Taichung and left two suitcases with explosives behind before disembarking at Hsinchu. He joined Hu and together they drove up to New Taipei City’s Tucheng District, where he disguised himself as a police officer to leave two more cases with bombs outside the office of legislator Lu Chia-chen. A religious festival was taking place in the neighborhood at the time and a procession was likely to pass the site, reports said.

A gasoline smell alerted train passengers to the pieces of luggage, which led to the authorities stopping the train and launching a high-profile investigation. As media were still reporting about the train scare, police found the abandoned suitcases outside Lu’s office. Cameras helped in determining the movements of the suspects.

Hu and Chu had driven from Tucheng straight to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport where they boarded a flight to Macau before traveling on to China. Police in Guangdong arrested them two days later and repatriated them to Taiwan on April 16.

In court, Hu claimed he was motivated by anger at the widening gap between rich and poor and said the explosives on the train were not designed to cause widespread injuries. The judge said he was using the claims as excuses to hide his greed.

Chu was also motivated by greed and claimed he had been threatened by Hu to place the devices. There were reports that the attorney might have intended for his associate to be killed in the blast on the train or later at Lu’s office, since all bombs were timed to explode more or less at the time that Chu was placing them.

 

[BalanceOfPower]

Failed bombers given harsh prison sentences (update)

Central News Agency
2014-01-22 07:44 PM

Taipei, Jan. 22 (CNA) The mastermind of two failed bombing attempts in northern Taiwan last year was convicted on attempted murder charges by the New Taipei District Court on Wednesday and sentenced to 22 years in prison. Hu Tsung-hsien, a lawyer, was found guilty of having made bombs and planting them on a moving high-speed train and outside a legislator's office last April. His accomplice Chu Ya-tung, a taxi driver, was also found guilty and given a 12-year prison sentence. Both Hu and Chu can appeal the rulings.

The court found that Hu asked Chu to plant suitcase bombs -- two in a toilet on one of Taiwan's bullet trains and two outside an office of ruling Kuomintang Legislator Lu Chia-chen in New Taipei -- on April 12, 2013, as part of a stock manipulation scheme. Anticipating that the destruction of public infrastructure and a legislator's office would sow anxiety and lead to a stock market crash, Hu short-sold 500 futures contracts based on the MSCI (Morgan Stanley Capital International) Taiwan Index early on the morning of April 12, the court said. The transaction, in which Hu deposited a guarantee of NT$14.82 million (US$491,017), was made immediately after Chu boarded a north-bound high-speed train at Taichung Station and planted two bombs in one its toilets. Hu expected to make US$50,000 for every point the index fell, according to the court.

Because the bombs failed to go off, he lost NT$12.37 million and the remaining NT$2.45 million of his deposit was seized by the court.

Beyond wanting to cash in on the stock market, Hu also planned the bombings to vent his anger at being indicted in February 2013 on charges of extortion and leaking private information, the ruling said. Meanwhile, the court rejected Chu's claim that he was intimidated by Hu into planting the suitcase bombs at the two locations.

In its ruling, the court said Chu had colluded with Hu in planning details of the criminal operations from the very beginning. There were also many indications that Chu was aware of the dangerous effects Hu's conspiracy could have on society, the court said. Chu was being paid NT$100,000 per month by Hu and never tried to stop him from committing the crime, the court said. As Chu was not the mastermind of the operation, however, he was given a shorter prison term than Hu. Hu and Chu, both in their 40s, fled to Guangdong Province in China on April 12, 2013 soon after planting the bombs but were arrested with the help of Chinese authorities and brought back to Taiwan on April 15.

Investigators said they managed to crack the case and had the suspects arrested in a matter of days mainly because they found traces of DNA on the suitcases, as well as fingerprints belonging to the two men on a van left in a car park near Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, where the pair had boarded a flight for China. Hu began to study information on Internet sites on how to make bombs after he was indicted in February 2013 on charges of extortion and leaking private information, according to investigators. Chu had a criminal record related to sex offenses. The two men have known each other for seven years, investigators said.

(By Wang Chao-yu and Sofia Wu)