Taiwan News
Date: 2020/05/13
By:  Central News Agency

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has vowed to strengthen Taiwan's psychiatric care services while offering her condolences to the widow of a Taichung dentist murdered by a man with a history of mental health issues.

Tsai made the pledge on Tuesday in a letter to the dentist's widow, Tsou Feng-chu (鄒鳳珠), in response to Tsou's appeal for help last week after the Taichung branch of the Taiwan High Court upheld a lower court's decision to give Lai Ya-sheng (賴亞生) a life sentence for the murder.

Lai fatally stabbed Tsou's husband, surnamed Wang (王), and injured two dental assistants as he tried to kill his estranged sister at the clinic where she worked on May 24, 2017.

In an April 29 decision, the Taichung court ruled that Lai's history of schizophrenia constituted grounds for a reduced sentence under Article 19 of Taiwan's Criminal Code and therefore declined to impose the death penalty.    [FULL  STORY]