TAIWAN. LI KUO-HUI SENTENCED TO DEATH

Court sentences arsonist to death for fire which killed nine. Li Kuo-hui, who set fire in his apartment building in New Taipei City last year with the deaths of nine people as a result received the death sentence. Li Kuo-hui, an ethnic Chinese man from Myanmar, claimed he heard the sound of neighbors making fun of him at his apartment in Zhonghe, New Taipei City. On November 22 last year, pouring a bottle of gasoline, he lighted the fuel on the staircase of his apartment building and fled, prosecutors said. Nine residents on the fourth and fifth floor lost their lives in the resulting blaze, with Li returning to the site to take a look and stealing clothes to change his appearance, reports said. The New Taipei District Court said Thursday he was guilty of extreme evil, taking out his revenge on innocent people in the most brutal way possible. Appeals against the sentence are possible, and while capital punishment is still on the books, no executions have taken place since 2016.