Township councilor gets heavy penalty for raping Indonesian worker

Taipei--A member of a township council in eastern Taiwan's Hualien County is going to jail for seven years and 10 months for raping a caregiver from Indonesia, according to a verdict handed down by the Supreme Court.

The highest court of Taiwan has rejected an appeal by Chen Chen-fu (???), an elected representative of Fuli Township, who was first given the sentence by the Hualien District Court in January 2016.

The district court meted out the relatively lengthy prison term for the crime after finding the defendant had shown no remorse for raping the victim twice in 2014 and had claimed that the intercourse was consensual.

After Chen's appeal, the case came eventually to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the defendant continued to resort to sophistry in an attempt to weasel his way out of trouble, according to a court document released Thursday.

Also, the defendant has never acquired the victim's forgiveness, the court said, noting that such a crime cannot be easily ignored.

The highest court's ruling is final and Chen will be stripped of his post as councilor on the day he begins his jail term.

Chen was accused of raping the foreign caregiver of his neighbor on July 2014 while he was drunk, and again four months later after winning his re-election, according to court documents.

The victim, a devout Muslim, said she could not report the offense to police after being raped the first time at her employer's home, because she was worried that she might herself be detained, as would be the case under sharia law, according to police records.

She finally reported the crime after being attacked a second time.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel