SEVENTH RETRIAL:Hsu Tzu-chiang did not speak after learning of his life sentence, while his 60-year-old mother said outside the court that ‘the judiciary system is dead’
By Chris Wang / Staff Reporter
The Taiwan High Court yesterday rescinded a death sentence ruling against Hsu Tzu-chiang (徐自強) and gave him life in prison in the seventh retrial in one of the longest-running murder cases in the nation’s history.
The High Court ruled that Hsu should be jailed for life for his alleged role in the kidnapping and murder of Huang Chun-shu (黃春樹), given a lack of evidence that Hsu had a motive for murdering Huang 16 years ago.
Hsu was sentenced to death in all six previous retrials. The High Court sentenced him to death on Dec. 8, 2009, in a sixth retrial before the Supreme Court referred the case for yet another retrial in March last year.
Hsu was one of three people convicted in the 1995 murder of Huang, who was kidnapped outside his home and killed shortly afterwards. His body was disfigured and abandoned in the countryside in New Taipei City (新北市), then Taipei County.
Attempts by the murderers to secure a ransom from the family enabled police to track down two suspects, Huang Ming-chuan (黃銘泉) and Chen Yi-lung (陳憶隆). Those two, who remain on death row, were linked to the murder by forensic evidence.
However, Hsu was convicted based solely on the confessions of the other two, his lawyers said.
One of the two later said Hsu was innocent and that they had implicated him because they wanted revenge over a private conflict.
The Control Yuan in 2001 issued a scathing report on Hsu’s conviction, citing serious flaws in the case, while the prosecutor-general filed a record five extraordinary appeals in the case, seeking to reopen it.
Hsu did not speak after learning of his sentence in court, while his mother said outside the court that “the judiciary system is dead” and that she could not accept the sentence, even though the death sentence had been rescinded.
“I am completely sure that he was home on the day [of the kidnapping]. I’m sure he did not do it. He has been detained for more than a dozen years and now I’m 60 years old. I don’t know whether I will live to see the day he is proven innocent,” she said.
Hsu’s mother said she would appeal the case.
Lin Yung-sung (林永頌), one of the lawyers representing Hsu, said the judges failed to uphold the principle of “presumed innocence” and did not make a ruling based on the evidence in the case as Hsu had an alibi on the day the kidnapping took place.
More than 50 judges have heard the case over the past 16 years, Lin said, but they have just “copied each other’s rulings.”