A Scots prisoner facing extradition to Taiwan claims he could suffer human rights abuses after the country’s deputy justice minister appeared to contradict reassurances given to the Lord Advocate that he will get special treatment.
Zain Dean, 44, fled the island in 2012 after he was sentenced to four years in prison for fatally injuring newspaper vendor Huang Jun-de, 31, while drunk driving.
Dean, from Edinburgh, has always insisted he is innocent and claims he paid a nightclub employee to drive him home to the Taipei apartment he shared with his Taiwanese girlfriend.
CCTV footage shows Dean getting into the passenger side of his black Mercedes before he was driven away from the club.
But the driver gave evidence that Dean later ordered him out of the car and he was seen on CCTV walking back to the club. No CCTV footage of the collision was produced or shown at the trial.
Dean was initially sentenced to two and a half years in prison but when his appeal was refused the jail term was increased to four years.
While on bail, Dean borrowed a friend’s passport and returned to Scotland - only to be arrested and imprisoned at HMP Edinburgh in October 2013 after an extradition request from Taiwan.
Dean will be in court this month when his legal team will aim to demonstrate that the conditions of detention in Taiwan are in contravention of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice moved to see off such a challenge by sending a letter to the Lord Advocate which offered reassurances that Dean will be given special treatment.
The letter pledges to provide a “ventilated” cell of 13.76 square metres equipped with a desk, chair, shelves, bed and a bathroom with a toilet, sink, shower and shower curtain.
In the letter, Chen Wen-chi, a “Director General” at the Ministry of Justice, also offered to provide Dean with “western food, such as hamburger or spaghetti”.
He added: “I, on behalf of the Ministry of Justice, ensure that the conditions mentioned above will be put into practice once Mr Dean is extradited back to Taiwan.”
However, deputy justice minister Chen Ming-Tang made a public statement recently which appeared to contradict the letter.
He said: “Because Zain Dean resists returning to Taiwan due to Taiwan's poor prison conditions, we have changed the prison conditions to meet with standards required by the UK courts. It shows Taiwan's prison environment to be satisfactory.
“Also we show different cultures and religion are respected by offering special food. But there are only a few areas like this and so not every prisoner can have this treatment.
“So, even if Zain Dean returns to Taiwan, this type of cell and treatment may not be available to him.”
Speaking to the Sunday Herald from prison in Edinburgh, Dean said: “Basically, they have been caught red handed admitting that reassurances they gave to the Scottish courts were appeasement.
“It is now public knowledge in Taiwan that these are only empty promises. They were basically trying to manipulate the Scottish justice system to meet their political aims.”
Dean intends to submit the statement by the deputy justice minister as evidence when he appears at Edinburgh Sheriff Court later this month.
But if the judges rule that conditions in Taiwan meet the required standards, Dean will be the first Brit to face extradition to Taiwan.
He said: “If I do go back and they give me a cell that is three to four times larger than what a normal prisoner gets they might see riots like they did last Christmas when people were going crazy because one individual prisoner got slightly better conditions.
“If they don’t give me the cell then they’ve basically gone back on an agreement with the Scottish courts.
“The statement by the deputy minister has made everything much more complicated now for the extradition.”
Aurora Wan-Mei Tsai, Assistant Director at the Taipei Representative Office Edinburgh, said the Ministry of Justice of Taiwan “will honour the commitment”.
She said: “The Deputy Minister Chen’s statement quoted by the media meant to point out the fact that the prison condition in Taiwan is improving gradually.
“The article being quoted may not reflect the full context of the Deputy Minister Chen's original comment. It is garbled due to limited space of news coverage and is not precise to its true meaning.
“The prison condition offered to Zain Dean complies with the Article 3 of the European Human Rights Convention and has been guaranteed in every single assurance letter from the Ministry of Justice of Taiwan to the Scottish court. The assurances have not changed at all.”
A spokesman for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said it is “entirely a matter for the court”.
A spokesman for the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) said: “The next hearing scheduled in this case is on Wednesday June 22 and Friday June 24.”
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