South African Military Attache Taken Hostage in Taiwan in 1997

Some of us with slightly better memories might remember the gruesome 1996 kidnap and murder of the daughter of Taiwan TV variety show host Bai Bingbing (白冰冰). The crime was committed by Chen Chin-hsing (陈进兴), said to be the most notorious criminal in the island's modern history.

Anyway, after the kidnap, the captors demanded $5 million in ransom and sent photos of the victim, bound with tape and with severed finger attached, to Bai. They later murdered the teenage girl and dumped the body in a ditch, while her mother was still trying to raise the money.

But according to Denny Roy in his book "Taiwan A Political History", there were other equally high-profile exploits by Chen and his associates. One of them was taking the South African military attache Colonel McGill Alexander and his family, including an infant Taiwanese foster child, hostage.

During the 24-hour standoff, Alexander and his 22 year-old daughter, who was used as a human shield by Chen, sustained bullet wounds.

Unsurprisingly, and in the aftermath of the incident, Taipei offered the South African government a formal apology. Chen was later arrested and shot by a firing squad in October 1999.

But it was interesting (or more likely it is due to my lack of understanding of diplomatic protocol) that exactly one year before the hostage incident took place, Pretoria had already switched diplomatic recognition to China. So how come the military attache was still in Taipei? Hmm.