Tainan: The Taiwan High Court’s Tainan branch upheld seven out of eight sentences related to a submachine gun shooting during a local election campaign in Tainan in late 2022. The court’s decision, made on Wednesday, confirmed the sentences initially given, except for one, which was overturned.

According to Focus Taiwan, the sole exception in the verdicts was for Lee Chi-han, whose initial not-guilty ruling was reversed. Lee was convicted in the second trial for aiding and abetting threats against others and was sentenced to one year in prison. The court found that Lee had driven the gunman, Kung Hsiang-chih, and assisted him in changing clothes after the shooting.

The remaining verdicts from the Tainan District Court in February were upheld, with sentences ranging from acquittals to up to 10 years in prison. The court found insufficient evidence to convict Wang Wen-tsung, the alleged mastermind and chairman of Ciji Temple in Tainan’s Syuejia District, of planning the shooting. Instead, he was found guilty
only of harboring a wanted fugitive, earning him a six-month sentence, commuted to a fine.

Hung Cheng-chun, a close associate of Wang, was convicted of orchestrating the shooting and recruiting Kung as the gunman. He received a 10-year prison sentence. The case centered around two attacks carried out by Kung on November 10, 2022, targeting properties owned by former Democratic Progressive Party Central Executive Committee member Kuo Tsai-chin and former independent Tainan City Councilor Hsieh Tsai-wang. The attacks did not result in any injuries as neither location was occupied at the time.

Both Hung and Kung fled to Fujian province in China following the incidents but were apprehended by Chinese police in January 2023 and subsequently repatriated to Taiwan in February.