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.

'If Chiang had not been executed, today he could leave jail and go home to be reunited with his mother, but now she can only mourn his death,' she said.

The debate over abolishing capital punishment resumed over the weekend after the Defence Ministry admitted that Chiang was wrongly executed for raping and killing a 5-year-old girl in 1996. A new probe by an independent group of prosecutors confirmed his innocence.

Another man, a former air force serviceman who was previously jailed for 12 years for molesting two small girls, has been arrested in connection with the girl's murder.

The victim was found in a lavatory at the Air Force Headquarters in Taipei where her mother worked.

A string of coincidences and the military's neglect of other evidence led to Chiang's conviction and execution.

The military said Chiang confessed. But in letters to his parents, Chiang said his confession was extracted from him following 37 hours of interrogation and torture.

President Ma Ying-jeou on Monday apologized to Chiang's family for his execution.

Ma instructed the military to rehabilitate Chiang and to help his family to seek compensation. He also vowed to overhaul the legal system and to safeguard human rights.

But Jiang's mother Wang Tsai-lien said it was not enough.

'My son was killed for a crime he did not commit. For 15 years our family has lived in shame and neighbours never spoke to us. Whatever apology or compensation the government promises, it is too late,' she told reporters.

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