NTUT student still missing in Alabama

Staff writer, with CNA





A Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) office in the US is in contact with police in Alabama who are searching for a missing Taiwanese student and has requested the Taiwanese community to hand over any helpful information to the authorities, the ministry said yesterday.

Auburn police on Wednesday last week said that Lai Chih-kai (賴智凱), a 21-year-old National Taipei University of Technology (NTUT) student on an exchange program at Auburn University, was reported missing earlier in the week, the Alabama news site al.com reported.

The following day, police released more details about Lai’s disappearance, saying that he was reported missing on Monday last week by the Auburn Taiwanese Student Association after he did not show up for class.

Lai, a computer science major at NTUT, arrived in the US on July 24 and last contacted his family on Aug. 17, the report said, but added that police obtained video surveillance footage of Lai at an Auburn restaurant on Sunday last week, the day before he missed class.

There is no indication of foul play, the police said, adding that Lai appears to have disappeared of his own accord.

Taiwan’s representative office in Atlanta said NTUT and the student association informed it of Lai’s disappearance and that it had contacted local police for further information.

The office has asked leaders of Taiwanese groups in Alabama to tell the expatriate community about the missing student so that police have all relevant information, ministry spokesperson Joanne Ou (歐江安) said yesterday, adding that the office would follow up and do everything possible to help find Lai.

In a statement yesterday, NTUT said that it had lost contact with Lai, as had his parents.

All his belongings, except for his mobile phone, were still in his dorm room and there had been no unusual withdrawals from his bank account, the university said.

An NTUT professor is to travel with Lai’s father to Alabama this week, it added.