Taiwan's justice minister, Tseng Yung-fu, speaks to reporters

TAIWAN: SIX DEATH ROW INMATES EXECUTED

December 21, 2012: Taiwan executed six death row inmates, the largest number to be put to death in one day in recent years. The executions were carried out at around 6:30 p.m. in three separate prisons in different parts of the country, a day after Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu signed orders giving the final go-ahead to carry out the death sentences given to the six individuals. All had capital sentences finalized by the Supreme Court.
Tseng Si-ru  and Hung Ming-tsung  were executed in Taipei Prison; Chen Chin-huo and Kwang Teh-chiang in Greater Taichung Prison; Huang Hsien-cheng in Greater Tainan Prison; and Tai Te-ying  in Greater Kaohsiung Prison, Deputy Minister of Justice Chen Shou-huang told a press conference. He did not describe how the six were executed. Usually convicts in Taiwan are put to death with a bullet to the head.
Chen Shou-huang said the six who were executed had murdered women or children using very cruel methods, including setting fire to a home that killed innocent lives. Chen Chin-huo and Kwang were sentenced to death for killing a female insurance agent and chopping up and eating parts of her body in 2004 in then-Taichung County. Tseng Si-ru, a former Taipei County senior-high school teacher, was convicted of killing a female colleague after she caught him burgling her home in 2002. Hung set fire to the home of in-laws, killing his brother-in-law and his brother-in-law’s three children in 2003 in then-Taipei County. Tai killed his girlfriend’s father by stabbing him 26 times and severely wounded his girlfriend’s mother in 2006 in Kaohsiung. Huang, who served a prison term for killing his ex-wife, murdered two other men five days after he was released on parole in 2005.
According to the ministry, Chen Chin-huo, Tai and Tseng Si-ru had signed documents donating their organs, but Tai was a hepatitis B carrier and Tseng Si-ru retracted his promise at the last minute. Only Chen Chin-huo’s organs were used.
In previous weeks, the debate over the use of the death penalty has been reignited by a much-reported playground murder of a 10-year-old boy whose throat was slit. Following reports suggesting that the 29-year-old suspect was allegedly looking forward to free board and lodgings in jail, angry protesters gathered at the justice ministry demanding the island's death row inmates be executed.
Deputy Minister of Justice Chen Shou-huang reaffirmed the MOJ's long-term goal of abolishing the death sentence. But the ministry should still abide by the law and carry out executions until such time as the people of the country reach a consensus to end capital punishment, he added. The ministry released public poll results showing that nearly 80 percent of the people in Taiwan are against abolishing the death penalty. The polls conducted in July by Master Survey & Research Co. for the ministry found that 76.7 percent of those polled did not support scrapping the death penalty and that 85 percent believed that ending capital punishment would be detrimental to public order. The poll also found that 81.6 percent of those surveyed said a gradual decrease in the use of capital punishment would be acceptable, the ministry said.
Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu, who took office in 2010, resumed capital punishment in Taiwan after a moratorium that had lasted since 2005. Four prisoners were executed in April 2010 and five prisoners in March 2011. According to the state-run Central News Agency, there are a total of 55 death row inmates following the 21 December's executions. (Sources: AFP, Central News Agency, The China Post, 22/12/2012)