The Taichung District Court on Saturday approved the detention of a 66-year-old man suspected of setting fire to his home, killing five members of his family, in Taichung’s Dali District the previous day.
Taichung prosecutors filed the request late Friday to have the suspect, identified by his last name Chen (?), detained due to the seriousness of the crime and over concerns he could destroy evidence, collude or flee the country, the court said.
According to the city’s Fire Bureau, Chen’s 62-year-old wife and their 38-year-old daughter, 32-year-old son, and two grandsons aged 11 and 6 months old, all had suffered out-of-hospital cardiac arrest by the time they were evacuated by firefighters from the three-story house. They were later pronounced dead at a hospital.
The suspect was the only one at the scene who escaped alive from the blaze.
Chen has told firefighters that he set the house on fire using sorghum liquor and alcohol, claiming that he was trying to drive away a snake in the house, according to the city’s Fire Bureau.
The case has been transferred to the Taichung District Prosecutors Office, where Chen is being investigated on suspicion of arson and homicide.
His oldest son, who happened to be working at the time delivering goods in Chiayi, later told reporters his father is an amputee who had lost his lower right leg due to illness, and was recently diagnosed with delirium.
As such, prosecutors had recommended to the court that the suspect be detained at a psychiatric hospital or other relevant mental institution during the investigation.
Lee Chin-ching (???), head of the administrative court at the Taichung court, told reporters on Saturday that the placement recommendation was denied as Chen could not provide any medical proof of his mental state.
It was not immediately known whether the court would order its own medical examination of Chen to assess his mental state.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel
