Wrongful Execution Reopens Death Penalty Debate By Dennis Engbarth
TAIPEI, Feb 5, 2011 (IPS) - Revelations that an Air Force private had apparently been wrongfully executed 15 years ago for the rape and murder of a five-year-old girl have reopened the debate over Taiwan’s retention of the death penalty.
Taipei District and Taichung District prosecutors announced Jan. 28 that after a new investigation into the case, another former Air Force enlisted man had confessed to the crime.
The announcement prompted President Ma Ying-jeou to apologise to the mother of then 21-year-old Air Force private Chiang Kuo-ching, who was convicted for the crime and executed by gunshot in 1997. Ma also promised "to use the swiftest legal procedure" to clear Chiang's name and make reparations.
BEIJING // An admission by the Taiwanese government that a young air force private was wrongly executed for murder nearly 14 years ago has led to renewed calls by human-rights groups for the island to abolish the death penalty.
Taiwan urged to scrap death penalty after wrongful execution
Jan 31, 2011, 13:25 GMT
Taipei - Taiwan was urged on Monday to scrap the death penalty, after the government admitted that a soldier was wrongly executed for killing a girl 15 years ago.
'This case of Chiang Ching-kuo proves again there is a risk to carrying out the death penalty, because once a person is wrongly executed, the mistake cannot be corrected,' Lin Hsin-yi, executive director of the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, told the German Press Agency dpa.
Taiwan's President apologizes over wrongful execution
January 31, 2011: Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou and the Ministry of National Defense (MND) formally apologised to the family of former air force private Chiang Kuo-ching.
Kuo-ching was wrongful executed for the rape and murder of a five-year-old girl in the R.O.C. Air Force Command Headquarters compound on RenAi Road in Taipei in September 1996.
JUSTICE?：Fifteen years after Chiang Kuo-ching’s execution for a child’s murder, DNA evidence has led to the detention of a man who confessed to the murder at the time
By Rich Chang, Ko Shu-ling and Shih Hsiu-chuan / Staff Reporters
Sun, Jan 30, 2011
A soldier who was executed by the military for the murder and rape of a five-year-old girl 15 years ago might have been wrongfully convicted, as the Taipei District Court on Friday detained a man suspected of committing the crime.
