Death Watch

 Last updated: August 2011

The Case of Chiou Ho-shun (邱和順) 

Confession of an accused not extracted by violence, threat, inducement, fraud, exhausting interrogation, unlawful detention or other improper means … may be admitted as evidence.~Code of Criminal Procedure, Article 156

Significance: Taiwan’s longest-running criminal case: The defendant is faced with execution after 24 years in custody and 12 trials.

Summary: Chiou (along with 11 codefendants) was arrested in 1988 and held incommunicado for four months. During these months he was repeatedly interrogated and confessed, a confession he later retracted claiming that he was tortured. In 1993, a Control Yuan investigation unearthed tapes of interrogation sessions, and concluded that police had used torture. A number of police officers were impeached, and later convicted by criminal court. Despite this and lack of material evidence, the case dragged on for another 8 years until now.

UA: 260/11 Index: ASA 38/004/2011 Issue Date: 31 August 2011

UNFAIR TRIAL LEADS TO IMMINENT EXECUTION

A Taiwanese man, Chiou Ho-shun, is in imminent danger of execution. He was sentenced to death in 1989 after an unfair trial. On 25 August, the Prosecutor General rejected a request to seek an extraordinary appeal for a retrial.

Chiou Ho-shun was detained in 1988 and tried in connection with two separate crimes: the kidnapping and killing of Lu Cheng and the murder of Ko Hung Yu-Lan. Only Chiou Hu-shun was sentenced to death; his 11 co-defendants were sentenced to prison terms, which they have all completed, apart from one who died in prison.

Chiou Ho-shun and his co-defendants say that they were held incommunicado for the first four months of their detention and they were tortured to make them confess. They later retracted their confessions.