Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=03/07/05

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=TAIWAN/ASSASINATION (S/L)

NUMBER=2-323050

BYLINE=HEDA BAYRON

DATELINE=HONG KONG

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

HEADLINE: Taiwan Police Name Leading Suspect In Shooting of President - and Reveal that He Died

INTRO: Police in Taiwan say they have identified the "most likely" suspect in the attempted assassination of President Chen Shui-bian last year. But the man is dead, and Taiwan's opposition questions whether the truth behind the bizarre election eve shooting will ever be known. VOA's Heda Bayron reports from Hong Kong.

TEXT: Police say Chen Yi-hsiung, an unemployed man in his 50s from the city of Tainan, "most likely" shot Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian and Vice President Annette Lu on election eve on March 19th last year.

/// HO ACT IN CHINESE, EST AND FADE UNDER ///

Ho You-yi, head of Taiwan's Criminal Investigation Bureau, says the suspect's notes say he was depressed when Chen Shui-bian became president because the economy turned bad.

Mr. Ho told reporters that evidence linking the suspect, Chen Yi-hsiung, to the shooting included video footage from the scene, ballistics tests, and testimony from the dead man's wife that her husband had confessed to the shooting.

Mr. Ho said Chen Yi-hsiung's body was recovered from the Tainan harbor ten days after the shooting, and the death is a suspected suicide.

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The opposition accused the president of staging the attack to gain sympathy in the closely contested election. President Chen, who narrowly won a second term, has denied the allegation.

The shots from a home-made weapon grazed President Chen in the stomach and wounded Ms. Lu in the right knee as they campaigned in an open vehicle in southern Taiwan.

A spokesman of the opposition Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, says the party is skeptical of the latest findings, saying the truth may never be known since the suspect is dead. The party plans to hold a protest on the anniversary of the shooting next week.

Police investigated more than a hundred people in connection with the shooting, including Mr. Chen, who reportedly resembled a man in a yellow jacket seen fleeing the scene.

He was later released, and the police said his family came to them with information only in recent days. The family was quoted as saying Mr. Chen confessed to his wife that he shot the president. He also changed his hairstyle and burned his yellow jacket.

Police say they still do not consider the case solved. The gun used in the shooting has never been found. (Signed)

NEB/HK/HB/BK