A debt dispute at a Keelung restaurant ended with a man dead from a broken bottle, and prosecutors have decided it was not murder.

• A 56-year-old man and a 58-year-old contractor argued over money at a stir-fry restaurant in Keelung's Xinyi District in May.
• The younger man hit the contractor over the head with a bottle he picked up; the bottle shattered and a shard cut a major blood vessel in his neck.
• The contractor bled heavily, went into shock, and died at the hospital.
• Prosecutors said the attacker stopped and left once the bottle broke, so they could not prove he intended to kill — the charge is causing death through assault, not murder.
• Because someone died in an intentional crime, the case goes to Keelung District Court under Taiwan's citizen judge system, where ordinary people sit alongside judges.

Outlook: The trial will be one of the cases decided by a mixed panel of citizen and professional judges, whose verdict will show how the public weighs intent in a fatal bar fight.