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進入《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》 Questions raised about prison drama
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu, fourth left, and Kaohsiung City Police Department Commissioner Chen Chia-chin, fifth left, yesterday present awards to six police officers in recognition of their bravery during the hostage crisis at Kaohsiung Prison last week. Photo: Ko Yu-hao, Taipei Times
MEDIA SUSPICIONS: ‘Next Magazine’ claims the six prisoners did not commit suicide, but the Ministry of Justice issued a coroner’s report that upholds the suicide verdict
By Jason Pan / Staff reporter
Kaohsiung Prison Warden Chen Shih-chih （陳世志） has been accused by Chinese-language Next Magazine of misleading reporters and investigators about many details of the hostage crisis that began at the facility on Wednesday last week, including whether the deaths of the six prisoners were really suicides.
According to a report in the latest edition of Next Magazine, published yesterday, there were numerous discrepancies in Chen’s account of the crisis and the number of inmates involved, which seemed to suggest that Chen and other prison officials might have tried to conceal the actual events.
The magazine also claims that the six inmates might not have committed suicide, but were shot by prison officials inside the facility to prevent them from talking to outsiders and that the warden was complicit in the alleged murder plot.
Meanwhile, following a two-day assessment, the Ministry of Justice last night released a coroner’s report that concludes that the six inmates committed suicide, but also listed areas for improvement at the prison.
Deputy Minister of Justice Chen Ming-tang （陳明堂）, when delivering the report, acknowledged there were flaws in the handling of the situation.
“We found these were far more serious than what appeared in last week’s investigation report,” he said.
The incident at the prison in Kaohsiung’s Daliao District （大寮） allegedly began as an escape attempt on Wednesday afternoon and ended with the deaths of the six before dawn the following day.
There have been other local media reports on the alleged discrepancies in the accounts of what transpired at the prison, including questions about the role Chen Shih-chih played during the crisis and whether he orchestrated a cover-up while portraying himself as a heroic figure.
In the aftermath of the incident, the warden is reportedly in line for a promotion to a top post in the Ministry of Justice’s Agency of Corrections.
While there was no comment from Chen Shih-chih as of press time last night, earlier in the day Kaohsiung Prison Deputy Warden Lai Cheng-jung （賴振榮） issued a statement saying the media reports were inaccurate, and that he would not rule out suing Next Magazine over its story.
According to Next Magazine and other reports, photographs taken during the crisis indicate that one or two more inmates might have been involved in the hostage-taking.
The official account says only six prisoners took part.
The reports said that when an incident at the prison was first reported on Wednesday afternoon, Kaohsiung Prison staff told reporters and local police units that there was no problem, that the prison was just “conducting a drill.”
Some of the reports have suggested that the prison officials were trying to cover up what was taking place.
They said that when the six prisoners attacked guards in the prison’s medical facility and took two of them hostage before heading to the prison’s reception room, a prison supervisor had triggered the emergency warning bell, which should have alerted all prison officials.
However, it was alleged that officers in charge of communications did not inform either senior officials or the Ministry of Justice, and that Chen Shih-chih arrived at the scene 20 minutes later.
Another major point of contention is how the six prisoners died.
The deputy minister of justice said investigators have been dispatched to Kaohsiung Prison to examine the surveillance camera records and verify the events that occurred last week.
A list for punishment of prison staff who were derelict in their duties will be released before March 4, he said.
“We urge all those not present or who did not take part [in the crisis], not to speculate, or to make unfounded connections, to avoid embroiling society in controversy,” Chen Ming-tang added.
However, retired coroner Kao Ta-cheng （高大成） yesterday joined the ranks of the doubters who question the official version of events, especially how the six died.
“It is highly unlikely that the inmates would commit suicide because they claimed they wanted to seek redress for injustice and wrongful convictions against them,” Kao said.
He said it is impossible to commit suicide by shooting oneself in the solar plexus without both the hand and the gun ending up by the abdomen position.
Kao said that in pictures of the dead inmates, one body looks as if the man was held down on the ground and shot.
The ex-coroner said that the bodies of the six should have been examined for traces of gunpowder residue on their hands and the guns they allegedly used checked for fingerprints.
A lack of fingerprints on the guns could rule out suicide, he said.
Kao said Chen Shih-chih should have also been examined for gunshot residue.
“It is likely the inmates bribed someone who promised to allow them to escape. However, something did not go right, and this person might have decided to kill all the people involved so that there would be no witnesses to the plot. I do not believe all six inmates decided they would rather die than live, especially since they believed that they had been victims of injustice,” he said.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
