[Last update on Nov 9, 2020 at 14:20]
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Four Taiwanese men have been arrested and prosecuted for vandalizing with feces a Taipei restaurant that was established to provide Hongkongers living in exile with work, and the police said on Monday (Nov. 9) that the four confessed they were paid by a Chinese national to ravage the shop.
A day earlier, the Hong Kong protest-supporting restaurant, Aegis (保護傘), announced that it will resume operation on Wednesday (Nov. 11) after three weeks of restoration and renovation.
"All employees are still getting paid during this period of time," it stated.
Founded by pro-democracy Hong Kong attorney Daniel Wong Kwok-tung (黃國桐), Aegis opened just seven months ago on Xinsheng South Road in Taipei's Da'an District and employed young Hongkongers struggling to make ends meet as they live or study in the city. Before the accident, there were attacks on Hongkongers in the country plotted by pro-unification and pro-Beijing gangsters.
The police arrested the suspect, a 25-year-old male surnamed Mo (莫), within 24 hours of the attack on Oct. 16, and three other accomplices have been tracked down in the following weeks.
They confessed to the police that they were hired by a Chinese national to carry out the attack. The police are still investigating the true identity and the motive of the Chinese man.
The police said a Chinese man, whose name remains unknown, was found to have contacted a Taiwanese man surnamed Chen (陳), who is working in China, to hire people to vandalize the restaurant. Sometime in September, Chen connected with Lee Chao-hsin (李昭信) through WeChat to plot the attack and wired NT$30,000 (US$1,051) to Lee’s bank account as a reward.
Two days before the attack, Lee and his brother collected feces from livestock farms near the city and gave it to Mo. On Oct. 16, they worked as a team in which Mo splashed the waste in the kitchen and on the counter, while the Lee brothers sat at a dining table pretending to be customers as another man, Chiang Chi-jung (江啓榮), filmed the incident outside the restaurant.
Mo and three other accomplices have been prosecuted by the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office on charges of destruction of property, intimidation, and public insult. The four have been held in custody and barred from visits.
