Chiu Ho-shun Case

Chiou Ho-shun is a Taiwanese death row prisoner who has drawn international concern. Unfair trials have forced him to spend over ten thousand days in prison for a crime he did not commit……

In 1988, the Criminal Investigation Corps of the Taipei City Police Department acted on a tip from a secret informant to track down and arrest Chiou Ho-shun and 11 other defendants, accusing them of jointly committing the dismemberment of female insurance agent K'o Hung Yu-lan in Miaoli County in November 1987, as well as the shocking kidnapping of elementary school student Lu Cheng in Hsinchu that December.

However, there was a total lack of evidence in both cases to prove that Chiou Ho-shun and the other defendants were genuinely involved. The prosecution's case was built entirely on 288 written confessions extracted from the defendants. The entire case was fraught with flaws, and the defendants' confessions were contradictory from start to finish. Not only were K'o Hung Yu-lan's head and limbs never found, but Lu Cheng's whereabouts remain a mystery to this day.

Dozens of judges who presided over this case lacked the moral courage to render not-guilty verdicts, nor were they willing to take responsibility for past mistakes. Following the passage and implementation of the Act Pertaining to Speedy Trials in Criminal Cases, Chiou Ho-shun, who had been detained for nearly 23 years, had his final appeal dismissed by the Supreme Court in 2011, finalizing his death sentence and leaving him vulnerable to execution at any time.

Even though the police officers handling the case back then were impeached by the Control Yuan for torture and found guilty by final court judgments—with even one police officer stepping forward out of conscience to testify to the fact that the defendants were subjected to torture—the courts remain unwilling to summon the police officers, investigate evidence favorable to the defendants, or retry the case.

Torture

Former Minister of Justice Ms. Wang Ch'ing-feng, while serving as a Control Yuan member, personally listened to more than a hundred police interrogation audio recordings that remained in the case file. In September 1994, she proposed a corrective measure against the 10 police officers and 2 prosecutors in charge of the case on the grounds of "using violence and coercion" and "handling the case hastily." In 1998, the court convicted 4 of the police officers of offenses against personal liberty and perjury by final judgment. This means that Chiou Ho-shun and the others did indeed produce their confession records under the duress of torture.

However, during the trials of the two cases, the court only excluded the portions of the audio tapes containing clear evidence of torture from being used as evidence, while still treating the contents of the other defendants' statements as evidence. This clearly violates the legal rule that the prosecution bears the burden of proof to demonstrate that no torture occurred.

  Image 1: Lu Cheng case defendant Teng Yun-chen wearing only briefs during questioning.

Interrogation audio of co-defendant 01

Interrogation audio of co-defendant 02

K'o Hung Yu-lan Case

  Image 2: Official document from the Chu-nan Precinct, Miaoli County Police Bureau showing that the plastic bag left behind by the perpetrator of the K'o Hung Yu-lan murder case is untraceable.

On November 24, 1987, insurance agent K'o Hung Yu-lan went missing after leaving her office. Her black leather shoes and a portion of her remains were found on December 12 in a drainage ditch in Chu-nan Township.

Contradictions Among Defendants' Confessions, Judgment Reasoning, and Objective Facts

• The murder weapons listed in the judgment—one rope and three sharp knives—blatantly contradict the evidence discarded next to the remains in a black plastic bag, which contained a pig-slaughtering knife, a small rectangular knife, and a veterinary syringe.
• Chiou Ho-shun once stated that K'o Hung Yu-lan was taken and checked into an inn on the day she was deceived, but no lodging records could be found, and hotel staff testified that they did not see the two checking in that day.
• Chiou Ho-shun once confessed: "I grabbed her hair with my hand and pulled her up, and Lin K'un-ming then stabbed her temple with a dog-slaughtering knife." However, Dr. Yang Jih-sung determined that the victim died of strangulation and asphyxiation, which clearly contradicts the defendant's statement.

Loss of Key Evidence

Important evidence found near K'o Hung's remains, such as the pig-slaughtering knife and veterinary syringe, went missing due to poor preservation by the police and could not be re-examined.

Was the Real Killer Someone Else?

Based on the pig-slaughtering knife and veterinary syringe found near the remains, as well as forensic appraisal results, the Miaoli County Police Bureau deduced that the perpetrator might have been someone who slaughters pigs. In addition, three days before K'o Hung Yu-lan's remains were discovered, the perpetrator called the workplace of K'o Hung Yu-lan's daughter, stating that "there is a dismembered person at Ch'ing-ts'ao Beach, who might be your mother," indicating that the perpetrator was familiar with the K'o family. The aforementioned evidence not only has no connection to Chiou Ho-shun and the others, but instead points heavily toward a certain Mr. Cheng, who was acquainted with the victim.

Lu Cheng Case

  Image 3: Ministry of the Interior official document explaining the fingerprint comparison results in the Lu Cheng case.

On December 21, 1987, Hsinchu schoolchild Lu Cheng disappeared after leaving his cram school, and his family received multiple ransom calls from the perpetrators. Although the family paid the ransom as instructed, the child never returned safely. More than nine months later, the Criminal Investigation Corps of the Taipei City Police Department acted on a tip from a secret informant to arrest Chiou Ho-shun and others, unilaterally announcing that the case was solved. To this day, Lu Cheng remains missing.

Unidentified Fingerprints

None of the 7 fingerprints lifted from the ransom note and envelope matched any of the defendants, the victim's family, or the handling personnel in this case. The perpetrator was someone else.

Alibi

  Image 4: Chiou Ho-shun's car rental contract in Miaoli on December 21, 1987.

Lu Cheng went missing between 6:10 PM and 6:15 PM on December 21, 1987. Between 6:40 PM and 7:30 PM that evening, the Lu family received 3 extortion and kidnapping calls. However, according to the car rental contract retrieved by the police, Chiou Ho-shun and others were renting a car in Miaoli at that exact time, which is corroborated by witness Wu Chin-ming. It is blatantly evident that the defendants had an alibi.

Confessions Inconsistent with Objective Facts

• Chiou Ho-shun and others confessed that on the morning of that day, they saw Lu Cheng arriving at school in a luxury private car and concluded that his family was wealthy, thereby targeting Lu Cheng. However, according to statements from the Lu family, Lu Cheng took the bus to school on the day he went missing.
• Lu Cheng's remains were not found at any of the 8 body-abandonment locations mentioned in the defendants' interrogation records.

Unprofessional Voiceprint Analysis

  Image 5: Voiceprint spectrograms clearly cropped and cut.

• The voiceprint spectrogram attached to the appraisal report had been cropped and cut by the expert, and was not the original spectrogram, making it impossible to determine its authenticity.
• The expert relied solely on listening comparison and voiceprint spectrogram comparison methods to determine that only 19 words within the voiceprints could be considered "similar," and arbitrarily concluded that the extortionist and the defendant were the same person. This clearly violates the Investigation Bureau's regulation requiring a minimum standard of at least 40 similar distinctive words before identity can be established.
• The original audio tape containing the real extortionist's voice disappeared shortly after the indictment, making re-examination impossible.
• Voiceprint characteristics are highly variable, and voiceprint analysis is not generally accepted internationally as valid scientific evidence.

Rescue Chiou Ho-shun

Due to poor conditions in correctional facilities, Chiou Ho-shun, who is growing older, has seen his health deteriorate day by day and has been in and out of the hospital multiple times in recent years. The pro bono legal team hopes to secure vindication for Chiou Ho-shun as soon as possible. Every single minute and second you invest will be the greatest encouragement to Chiou Ho-shun and the pro bono legal team.

If you have 30 seconds

Please give a "like" to the I am Chiou Ho-shun Facebook fan page and continue to follow the Chiou Ho-shun case.

If you have 30 minutes

Come to the JRF, pick up a pen with us, and write a letter to Chiou Ho-shun so that he can personally receive care from you while behind bars.

If you have 3 hours

Join us to visit Chiou Ho-shun at the Tucheng Detention Center and share with him the world outside the iron bars.

Learn More

• May 23, 2016 Chiou Ho-shun Case Lecture—The Labyrinth of Confessions From Which There Is No Exit (K'o Hung Yu-lan Case)
• June 8, 2016 Chiou Ho-shun Case Lecture—The Labyrinth of Confessions From Which There Is No Exit (Lu Cheng Case)
• Key Summary of Defense Arguments in the 11th Remand Retrial of the Chiou Ho-shun Case

Petitioning Organizations

• Chiou Ho-Shun Case Lawyers Group
• Judicial Reform Foundation
• Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty
• Taiwan Association for Human Rights
• Taiwan Innocence Project
• Covenants Watch
• Taiwan Jury Association
• Taiwan Democracy Watch
• Taiwan Forever Association
• Humanistic Education Foundation
• Taiwan Labour Front
• Taiwan Alliance for the Innocent
• Chung-bu Symbiosis Youth Association
• Hsing-Fu-Li Association