Message of Thanks from Chiou Ho-shun

Chiou Ho-shun, a Taiwanese man, who was recently the subject of an Urgent Action, has told a visitor from AI Taiwan that he is grateful for all the letters he has received from around the world.  He said «this is true love» and thanked everyone for their support.

He was sentenced to death in 1989 after an unfair trial. On 25 August, the prosecutor General rejected a request to seek an extraordinary appeal for a retrial.  

Chiou Ho-shun was detained in 1988 and tried in connection with two separate crimes: the kidnapping and killing of Lu Cheng and the murder of Ko Hung Yu-Lan. Only Chiou Hu-shun was sentenced to death; his 11 co-defendants were sentenced to prison terms, which they have all completed, apart from one who died in prison.
Chiou Ho-shun and his co-defendants say that they were held incommunicado for the first four months of their detention and they were tortured to make them confess. They later retracted their confessions.

In 1994, after an official investigation, two public prosecutors and 10 police officers handling the kidnapping and killing of Lu Cheng were convicted of extracting confessions through torture. Police admitted in 2003 that they had covered up the fact that another death row inmate had confessed, just before his execution, to the killing of Lu Cheng.

During the 23 years Chiou Ho-shun has been in custody, his case has bounced back and forth between the High Court and Supreme Court 11 times.  The courts have failed to exclude as evidence his confession, though it was extracted under torture; neither have they investigated the confession of the other death row inmate to the killing of Lu Cheng.

For more information see UA: 260/11.

UA 260/11; Index: ASA 38/004/2011 Taiwan.