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Ex-soldier gets 18-year sentence for 1996 rape-murder

ROC Central News Agency

2011/12/12 22:03:37

By Tang Hsiao-tien and Jamie Wang

Taipei, Dec. 12 (CNA) Former air force serviceman Hsu Jung-chou was sentenced to 18 years in jail Monday for a rape and murder that another military conscript was wrongfully executed for in 1997 after a forced confession.

Hsu was arrested in late January this year and confessed to having raped and killed the five-year-old girl at the Air Force Combat Command in Taipei in 1996. Prosecutors in May indicted him on homicide charges and recommended that he be sentenced to a 20-year jail term.

According to the Taipei District Court verdict, a palm-print found on the window from which the body of the victim was pushed out matched Hsu's.

The descriptions in his confessions also conformed to the evidence found at the crime scene, it said.

Hsu's portrayal of how the crime was committed matched the blood splatter patterns and his description of how the body was dumped was also in line with the findings at the scene, the court found.

The defendant was also able to clearly describe the clothes and underwear that the victim was wearing and explain where the clothes were disposed of, a detail that gave investigators trouble when they pursued the case in 1996.

Hsu can appeal the ruling.

It was the second time an individual had been convicted for the murder.

An air force servicemen named Chiang Kuo-ching was charged with raping and killing the five-year-old girl two months after her body was found at the Air Force Combat Command on Sept. 12, 1996.

He was executed for the crime on Aug. 13, 1997 at the age of 21 even though Hsu, who was arrested for a separate rape case three months before Chiang's death, had confessed at that time to the crime.

Chiang is believed to have been tortured and coerced into confessing by air force counterintelligence officers and was later convicted and sentenced to death.

In May 2010, the Control Yuan, the government's top watchdog body, censured the Ministry of Defense (MND) over irregularities in its handling of the case, especially for obtaining a coerced confession from Chiang and ignoring Hsu's confession.

Justice Minister Tseng Yung-fu instructed local prosecutors to reopen the case after the censure.

He directed the Taipei District Prosecutors Office to look into whether Chiang was in fact coerced into a confession and the Taichung District Prosecutors Office to re-investigate the rape and murder case.

It was not until September 2011 that a posthumous retrial by a military court acquitted Chiang of the charges, with the court ruling that his confession was not given freely and was therefore not admissible.

The evidence presented in the case, such as the suspected murder weapon and tissue stained with the child's blood, was also not necessarily conclusive and had not been subjected to a modern forensic examination, the court found.

In November 2011, the Northern Military District Court awarded NT$103 million (US$3.41 million) in compensation to Chiang's family.

The court also froze the assets of eight former military officers implicated in the wrongful execution of Chiang to prevent them from transferring funds if they were later held liable for compensation.