Chinese police detain 10 Turkish nationals over alleged Uygur airport plot using fake passports
Masterminds planned to use doctored papers to help Xinjiang suspects leave China
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 14 January, 2015, 2:02pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 15 January, 2015, 2:41am
Laura Zhou [email protected]
Uygur suspects detained by police at Shanghai's Pudong airport allegedly planned to go to Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Photo: Bloomberg
Shanghai police arrested 10 people from Turkey who plotted to fly ethnic Uygurs from Xinjiang out of the country on forged passports, a state-run newspaper reported yesterday.
Some of the nine Uygur suspects also arrested confessed that they ultimately planned to travel to Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Global Times reported.
One of the Uygurs was a wanted terrorist and terrorism-related videos were found on suspects' phones, the report said, citing the police.
Two other Chinese citizens were also detained for their alleged roles in the plot.
The November arrests come after a series of violent attacks in Xinjiang and other places on the mainland in recent months that the government has blamed on Muslim Uygur separatists from Xinjiang.
Wu Sike, China's special envoy on Middle East affairs, said last July that Syria and Iraq had become training grounds for "terrorists" from the restive region in China's far northwest.
Nine Turkish citizens received forged invitations to come to China so their passports could be used to help the nine Uygurs leave the mainland, the Global Times, a newspaper linked to the Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily, reported.
After the Turks' arrival, another Turkish citizen took their passports abroad.
Information on the documents was allegedly modified so the Uygur suspects could use them to leave the country through Shanghai Pudong International Airport, the report said.
Police said a person from Kashgar in Xinjiang, living in Turkey, together with another Turkish citizen, had masterminded the scheme.
The Uygur suspects allegedly paid 60,000 yuan (HK$76,000) each for help in leaving China. The Turkish citizens were allegedly paid US$2,000 each for the use of their passports.
The Turkish embassy in Beijing said it had no information about the case when contacted for comment.
The foreign ministry in Turkey did not immediately respond to requests for information from the South China Morning Post.
Li Wei, the director of the anti-terrorism research centre at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said it was an increasing challenge for the authorities to stop domestic militants leaving China to take part in jihad, or holy wars, on foreign soil. "When you cut off one way, they are opening a new road," Li said. "And as the ties between the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and Islamic State are getting closer, China needs to step up its security efforts to prevent their legal or illegal ways to travel abroad."
In the latest attack in Xinjiang, six people were shot dead in Shule county near Kashgar on Monday after one tried to attack police with an axe and others later attempted to detonate explosives, state media reported.
