Scholar says new probe of Lin family murders is a continuing cover-up

Wu Nai-teh, a research scholar at Academia Sinica, has denounced the Taiwan High Prosecutor's office for an incomplete investigation in to the 1980 murder of the family of democracy activist Lin Yi-hsiung.

Lin, a former chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party, was an editor at Formosa Magazine and helped organize a Human Rights Day march in Kaohsiung in December 1979. Provocateurs in the large crowd triggered a police assault against the marchers. In a move to shut down the magazine the Kuomintang government of the Republic of China in-exile brought riot charges against the march organizers and ultimately imposed long prison sentences on eight people.

Lin had been arrested and subjected to severe beatings which he described in a written statement three days before the brutal murder of his family.

"If the investigators were not satisfied with an answer, they would keep hitting me until I couldn't bear it any longer. I shall never forget the verbal intimidation and what some of the investigators said to me. 'If you don't talk and give us the evidence, we will beat you. If you get beaten to death, we will just say that you committed suicide out of fear or guilt. If you don't talk we will knock all your teeth out."

Lin's mother, A-Ma, had been to jail to see him and reported his bruised condition to Amnesty International. The next day, February 28, 1980, on the anniversary of the infamous 228 Massacre, a killer entered the Lin home and viciously stabbed to death Lin's twin daughters and his mother. The only survivor of the attack was daughter Huan-Chun who had been stabbed eight times and left for dead.

The crime has never been solved.

Many believe the killings were done by the secret police that terrorized the Taiwanese population. The house had been under police surveillance and any intruder should have been spotted. Additionally, the 228 Massacre anniversary date strongly suggested the killings were done to intimidate critics of the Kuomintang. The 228 Massacre was a 1947 Formosan uprising against the Chinese Nationalist occupation government that was brutally crushed.

Ma Ying-jeou, current leader of the ROC, ordered a reopening of the case last year after public pressure for a truth commission. The inquiry did not seek out any new witnesses but instead consisted of a paper review of the original investigative files. One detail, kept secret for 30 years, has been released by the High Prosecutor's office. The killer made a phone call from the residence to a restaurant.

Wu Nai-teh told the Taipei Times that the phone call secrecy should have been pursued and that keeping the call hushed suggested government involvement in the crimes.

"The phone call may have been a signal from the killer to whoever ordered the murder of Lin's family members, and could have been key evidence in breaking the case. The investigation panel could find something if it tried to find out why the call was concealed."