Unidentified gunmen shot dead a Taiwanese tourist and kidnapped his wife on Friday in a remote part of Malaysia that was rocked earlier this year by a bloody Philippine militant incursion, a security official said.
The incident occurred at 1am on Friday on Pom Pom Island, a popular scuba diving location in the eastern state of Sabah on Borneo island, and underlined continued security threats in the region despite a Malaysian security clampdown following the February incursion.
“A 57-year-old Taiwanese man was shot dead while his 56-year-old wife has been taken away. She has been taken somewhere else,” said Mohammad Mentek, head of the Eastern Sabah Security Command, a joint police and armed forces operation set up in the wake of the incursion.
A police report on the incident identified the shooting victim as Li-Min Hsu, and his wife as An-Wei Chang.
Mohammad said it was not yet known who the gunmen were, where they were from, or where the woman was taken.
Malaysia and Taiwan do not have formal diplomatic ties.