Taiwan News
Date: 2017/01/25
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)–The Taiwan High Court on Wednesday spared the life of a defendant who burned

(By Central News Agency)

a friend to death to assume his identity in a bid to avoid jail time in connection with a previous separate sexual attack case, ruling that there are no compelling reasons to sentence him to death.

In 2010, Sun Kuo-huang was sentenced to eight years and six months for offenses against sexual autonomy eleven years ago, but he decided to avoid the jail time by making a murder look like self-immolation, according to a document released by the high court’s Kaohsiung branch on Wednesday. Therefore, Sun went online to search information related to self-immolation, the court document said.

Investigations found that Sun had bought a strong hang rope and gasoline before renting a car and calling his friend surnamed Chang, a doctoral student he just knew on the Internet, asking to meet him. Sun took Chang to a motel, attacked him until he fainted, and then bound his hands before taking him to a mountainous area in Kaohsiung, according to the document. Sun splashed the gasoline, set the car ablaze, which killed Chang, and ran away, the document said.    [FULL  STORY]