Xinjiang court sentences Uighur man to death for violence
A court in the far western Chinese province of Xinjiang has sentenced to death an Uighur man for masterminding a knife-and-hatchet attack on a busy street last month that led to the deaths of 15 people.
A Kashgar court in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region convicted Abudukeremu Mamuti of "organizing and heading a terrorist group, and intentional killing" and sentenced him to death on Monday, according to Global Times, an English-language newspaper run by the Communist Party.
The court ruled that Mamuti spread religious extremism and terrorism between July 2011 and February this year.
On Feb 28, Mamuti and other members of his group killed 15 people and wounded 14 others "with axes and knives" in Yecheng County, which is also known by its Uighur name of Kargilik and is near Kashmir, the Global Times said.
Mamuti was detained at the scene while the other attackers were shot dead by police. Four policemen were wounded and one local security officer was killed in the clash, it said.
The World Uighur Congress, an exile group, has condemned the sentencing of Mamuti and questioned whether he received a fair trial.
The quick conviction and sentencing of Mamuti "casts serious doubts on the legitimacy of the trial, and we do not believe that it met international legal standards," Rebiya Kadeer, president of World Uighur Congress, said in a statement.
Uighurs are ethnic Turks who are linguistically, culturally and religiously distinct from China's majority Han population. They account for over 40 per cent of Xinjiang's 21 million people.
Xinjiang was rocked by violence in July 2009 when rioting between Uighurs and Han Chinese settlers left nearly 200 people dead and 1,700 injured in the capital Urumqi.
Source: The Asia News.Net
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