Taiwan police nab bullet makers in Chen shooting
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-12-13 10:55

A police forensics expert holds up homemade bullets, manufactured by an underground arms factory, that were used in the election-eve shooting of Chen Shui-bian and Annette Lu on December 13, 2004. Tiawan police have arrested members of an underground group that made the bullets used in the election-eve shooting of Chen Shui-bian in March, a government investigator said on Monday. [Reuters]

Taiwan police have arrested members of an underground group that made the bullets used in the election-eve shooting of Chen Shui-bian in March, a government investigator said on Monday.

The arrest represents the biggest breakthrough to date in the investigation into the March 19 shooting, which lightly wounded Chen and "Vice-President" Annette Lu while they were campaigning in an open-top jeep in the southern city of Tainan.

Chen won a second four-year term by a razor-thin margin the next day, and opposition parties have raised suspicions the attack might have been staged for sympathy votes.

"We've found the bullet manufacturers," said Jenny Kuo, a prosecutor in Tainan and spokeswoman for a task force investigating the shooting.

"But we are still pursuing the case since their bullets were sold to so many people."

Newspapers said five members of the gang had been arrested, but Kuo would only say that several were in custody.

Police have identified no suspects for the attack.

Police have had no luck finding a man in his 30s or 40s standing in the "hot zone" from where two shots are believed to have been fired from a homemade gun. The man's features cannot be clearly made out in television footage of the event.

"This is very encouraging for us given that we started the investigation with just two bullets and casing," Kuo said. "We now feel it's possible to solve this case."

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