One of the assailants who carried out an attack in western China that injured four people has apologized and said other members of his group had convinced him to participate in a “holy war,” state media said late on Saturday.
The knife attack occurred on Sunday last week in a crowded chess hall in the city of Hotan in troubled Xinjiang, the traditional home of ethnic Muslim Uighurs. Two of the attackers died from serious injuries, while the remaining one, Muer Zhati, was arrested, China Central Television (CCTV) said on Saturday.
“I just listened to them and did something like this, hacked people,” Muer Zhati was shown as saying on CCTV. “I’m sorry, I apologize for my behavior. I just want to say I’m sorry.”
Muer Zhati, who was shown on television wearing an orange prison vest and handcuffs, said members of his group had advocated a holy war, telling him that he could obtain a straight path to heaven.
“They told me about this matter of the holy war, that as long as I died while participating, I could go directly to heaven and not be subject to a trial after I die,” Muer Zhati said.
On that Sunday, Muer Zhati said he spent five seconds observing people in a room playing cards before he started hacking a woman.
CCTV said that Muer Zhati’s confession “came too late and all that is waiting for him now is the strict punishment of the law.”
CCTV often airs confessions by thieves, prostitutes and other petty criminals, but in recent months, several high-profile suspects have confessed to crimes on air, often wearing handcuffs and jumpsuits. Critics say public confessions deprive the accused of the right to a fair trial.
China has been on edge since a suicide bombing last month killed 39 people at a morning vegetable market in Xinjiang’s capital of Urumqi. Knife attacks in the past have often resulted in attackers being arrested or killed.
Chinese police shot dead 13 attackers in Xinjiang on Saturday after they rammed a car into a police station and detonated explosives, Xinhua news agency said.
In other developments, a rights lawyer has been arrested on charges of state subversion, his wife said on social media on Saturday, furthering a crackdown on activists since last year.
“Tang Jingling (唐荊陵) has been arrested on charges of ‘inciting subversion of state power,’” his wife Wang Yanfang (汪艷芳) wrote on her Sina Weibo account, where she also posted a photograph of the notice.
Tang, who is being held in Guangzhou and who has represented uncompensated victims of land grabs and imprisoned rights defenders, was detained last month on a charge of “causing a disturbance.”
Numerous activists were taken in around that time, some temporarily, ahead of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in Beijing.
Tang’s arrest also comes amid a series of arrests and trials of rights activists and lawyers. Many have faced charges such as disturbing public order or “picking fights and provoking trouble,” rather than the more serious charge of state subversion.
“To go from an ordinary crime to now a political crime means it could be more serious,” said Liu Xiaoyuan (劉曉原), another rights lawyer and acquaintance of Tang.
The prominent Beijing-based rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang (浦志強), who was also detained ahead of the Tiananmen anniversary, was arrested this month for “creating disturbances and illegally obtaining personal information.”
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