Police arrest man in Kaohsiung over Taipei MRT killing hoax

Taipei, Feb. 24 (CNA) A Kaohsiung man was arrested early Tuesday after prank calling the Taipei metro system threatening to kill people on a city subway, according to the Taipei City Police Department.

The arrested individual was a 36-year-old man who reportedly has a history of making prank calls threatening violence, according to several sources.

In a press release, the Taipei Police Department's Songshan Precinct said the Taipei Metro Operations Control Center reported receiving a phone call at around 7 p.m. Monday from a person who claimed he would kill people in a subway car between Nanjing Sanmin Station and its subsequent Songshan Station.

Following the call, members of the Taipei police and fire departments were deployed to Songshan Station.

Joined by station personnel, they searched a subway train that pulled into the station within the suspected time frame as well as the station but did not find any victims, leading officials to deem the threat a hoax.

An investigation was launched, and after obtaining an arrest warrant from the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office, police officers took the caller into custody in Kaohsiung at around 2 a.m. Tuesday for potentially violating public safety provisions of the Criminal Code.

According to several local media sources, authorities found that the caller held a moderate disability certificate and that he had a history of being arrested for making prank calls.

He was found, for example, to have made a call in 2024 to the Taiwan Railway Corp. claiming that he would be committing killings on a train and was also taken into custody at the time, but sources did not further divulge what happened to him after that.

Under Taiwan's Criminal Code, people who "endanger public safety by putting the public in fear of injury to life, body, or property," which could apply to prank calls, can be sentenced to up to two years of jail time.

Given the possibility of him having a disability, however, the caller could also be required to be admitted to a mental health institution instead.

During his arrest early Tuesday, the caller blamed his actions on boredom and bad influences, the Chinese-language Liberty Times reported.

His father, with whom the caller lives, said he was unable to prevent his son from misbehaving, the report said.

The case will be handed over to the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office for further questioning and possible prosecution as a part of the ongoing investigation.