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Death row convict ordered freed

Death row convict ordered freed

Death row convict ordered freed

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Cheng Hsing-tse, a man sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer, walked out a free man Tuesday after spending 14 years in prison.
He was sentenced to death in 2006 but doubts about his role in the affair persisted, leading to a new investigation and a decision by the Taichung High Court Tuesday to order his release, though he will still be barred from leaving the country and venturing out to sea.
Cheng was present at a karaoke bar in Fengyuan near Taichung on January 5, 2002, when a man named Lo Wu-hsiung fired a gun during a dispute, reports said. When police responded, Lo and an officer named Su Hsien-pi died during a shootout. Cheng, who was injured, was found guilty of having fired the shot that killed Su.
After his death sentence, relatives, attorneys and human rights campaigners alleged irregularities in the investigation and suggested Cheng might have been tortured.
The Taichung division of the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office came to the conclusion that a retrial was necessary and launched the procedure, reports said. The court decided that Cheng was not the man who killed Su, so there was no need to keep him detained.
His mother and brother traveled from Miaoli County to Taichung Tuesday afternoon in the hope they could return home together, reports said.
He was released after 4 p.m., saying how good it was to be free, while embracing his mother. She described his freedom as her best possible Mother’s Day present.