TAIPEI. Taiwan – Six prisoners at a southern Taiwan jail committed
suicide on Thursday, ending a standoff after they took several staff
hostage to complain about unfair trials and demand their freedom,
officials said.
The prisoners shot themselves inside Kaohsiung city prison in the
early morning, the justice ministry said, adding that the prison chief
and another senior staffer who were being held after a hostage swap were
unharmed.
The ministry said negotiations with the six prisoners ran through the
night, but did not say what prompted them to kill themselves.
The standoff began Wednesday when the inmates — jailed for a variety
of crimes including murder, robbery and drugs — broke into a weapons
storage room, obtained four rifles and six handguns, and took three
staff hostage.
They later agreed to release them in exchange for the prison chief and a senior staffer, the justice ministry said.
- Television images showed police armed with rifles and protective gear surrounding the prison. A senior Kaohsiung policeman said more than 250 officers had been mobilised.
- Lee Rong-tsung, a former councillor at the Kaohsiung City Council who reportedly knew one of the inmates, said the trio were unhappy about their “unfair trials” and complained that their jail terms were too long.
- The leader of the six was identified by police as Cheng Li-teh, a top member of a notorious triad group known as the Bamboo Union Gang. Sentenced to 28 years for murder, he had been behind bars since August 2012.
Cheng complained that Taiwan’s former president Chen Shui-bian — who
was sentenced to 20 years for graft — was given parole for medical
treatment last month.
“Chen Shui-bian was an inmate too, but why was he paroled and
described as a political prisoner?” Cheng said in a statement read out
by the justice ministry’s Wu.
Source: – AFP
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