TAIPEI (Taiwan News) - Following the discovery of the bodies of a couple in their seventies at their Taipei City home Wednesday (May 1) morning, investigators reportedly suspected their Iraqi son-in-law had run off with his one-year-old son to Japan.
After relatives failed to contact the couple, police arrived at the house in the capital’s Shilin District and found them dead, strangled with a towel, according to the Liberty Times.
Suspicion immediately focused on their Iraqi son-in-law, who was reportedly involved in a custody battle over his one-year-old son.
The man, later named by prosecutors as Alihammad Jomaah, aged 31, had met the boy’s Taiwanese mother during her studies in the United States, and the family later settled in Japan. After allegations of domestic violence, the elderly couple traveled to Japan and brought their daughter and grandson back to Taiwan, the Liberty Times reported.
The Iraqi man reportedly arrived in Taiwan from Japan, where he has a job, on April 27. He visited his parents-in-law almost every day, leading to heated discussions about the boy’s custody, according to local media. Records showed he left the country with the infant on a flight to Japan on Tuesday (April 30) morning.
Later Wednesday afternoon, he contacted his wife by Line, claiming to have arrived in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, and showing evidence that the boy was safely with him, the Central News Agency reported.
