The Very FIRST Case in the Nation: the Arson in the Apartment Causing Nine Fatalities, the Landlord Indicted on Manslaughter

There’s, the negligence, on the landlady’s part, and responsibilities for the deaths, on the arsonist’s, part both, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

An apartment in Zhonghe was burned down by arson back in 2017, the nine tenants from the fourth, and fifth floors all died; after the case, the suspect, Lee was sentenced to the death penalty TWICE, the High Courts retried the first trial in ongoing currently.  The landlady, Lien who was the owner of the suites failed to keep the building up to the fire codes, was charged with manslaughter yesterday, this was the very first case of its kind nationally.

The arsonist, Lee was an Asian born in Burma, he had the habits of abusing amphetamine, because he thought that his friends were, making fun of how his girlfriend had, dumped him, he’d, set fires multiple times, to get them back.  The first two times, someone stopped him before the fires could be set, there wasn’t, any, casualties, but, he’d committed arson with a keg of gasoline on November 22^nd, 2017, the fire raged out of control, causing nine deaths, one of the people who’d died was a police officer of Taipei, it’d shocked the police forces.

Lee claimed, “there’s a voice inside my head, telling me to do it”, attempted get a lesser punishment by insanity, the first and second trials, the courts sentenced him to death, the charges were, dismissed in the Highest Courts, and returned to the High Courts to retry.

Later on, the families of those who’d died discovered, that the suite was an illegally built complex, without the fire safety code us up to standard, believed that the landlord needed to, share the responsibilities, and sued the landlady, Lien and her daughter.

Lien claimed, that by 2015, when shed bought the complex, it was already set up as a suite for rent, and because the apartment was waiting for the urbanization plans to be settled, she only took in the rent, and not changed anything in it.  And, Lien’s daughter stated, that the apartment building was in her name, that she’d not, participated in the rental agreement dealings.

The D.A. investigated, the huge fire expanded out, causing the smokes, the add-on of the apartment roof compound was sealed up tight, and the smokes couldn’t get out, and after the remodeling of the apartment complex, the hallways were, narrowed, and, lacked the ability to ventilate the smokes well, and although some of the rooms had windows, and the fire department arrived within ten minutes of the emergency calls, the rate of the smoke passing out of the open window couldn’t beat the speed to which the smoke took over the room, of the nine victims, seven had, died of, smoke inhalation.

The D.A. believed, that Lien, the landlady knew that the apartment suite was illegally built, without the approvals from the fire department on fire safety, not made her apartment up to code, and still, rented it out, that she was, responsible for the seven tenants who’d, died of, smoke inhalation.  While her daughter was, only the “name” that the apartment complex was, registered under, the district attorneys dropped the indictment against her.

And so, even though, the landlady did NOT cause the fire, it was up to her, to keep her building up to fire code standards, which she’d, failed in doing so, that’s why the courts found her guilty of negligence.