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Two teenagers sentenced to death in brutal assassination of imam
Third man gets life in prison as part of terror group that hacked Jume Tahir to death outside Id Kah Mosque
PUBLISHED : Monday, 29 September, 2014, 3:16pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 30 September, 2014, 6:45pm
Laura Zhou [email protected]
One of the accused is shown on state television in court in Kashgar. Photo: SCMP Pictures
Two teenagers have been sentenced to death and a third man was given life imprisonment for their roles in the brutal assassination of a high-profile pro-Beijing imam in Kashgar.
Gheni Hasan, 18, and Nurmemet Abidilimit, 19, face execution on charges of forming and leading terrorist groups and murder. Atawulla Tursun was sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of taking part in terrorist groups and murder, state-own Xinhua News Agency said, citing the verdict of Kashgar Intermediate People’s Court.
The court in Xinjiang said that the three men, who had been influenced by radical religious beliefs after watching and listening to audio clips and videos on terrorism, carried out illegal religious activities and organised a terrorist group which was led by Hasan, Xinhua said.
They took part in terrorist training and killed Jume Tahir, 74, chief imam of the Id Kah Mosque and a former National People’s Congress delegate and former vice-president of the Islamic Association of China.
Police shot two men to death in the search following the assassination and detained Abidilimit, Xinhua said. Two days later Hasan was captured in Hotan, Xinhua reports.
The murder of Tahir came two days after armed men attacked police and government offices in Yarkand county, or Shache, near Kashgar, triggering clashes on July 28, the end of Ramadan. At least 37 civilians were killed and police shot dead 59 terrorists and detained 215 others.
The murder and the attacks touched the core of the ruling Communist Party in the restive region. Zhang Chunxian, the Communist party secretary of Xinjiang, pledged a crackdown against terrorists with “iron-hands and iron-wills” to ensure social stability and national security, Xinjiang Daily reported on August 1.
Tahir was hacked to death with an axe outside the mosque shortly after attending morning prayers on July 30, the Beijing Youth Daily previously reported.
Tahir was seen as a pro-Beijing religion leader in Xinjiang, home of Turkic-speaking Uygur Muslims.
He was often cited by state media for condemning the “three forces” of separatism, terrorism and extremism which the Chinese government blame for the terrorist attacks in the troubled region.
Weeks after one of the most deadly ethnic riots in Urumqi, in which at least 200 people died in July 2009, Tahir said in an interview with the China Central Television (CCTV) that the riot was “a crime and had nothing to do with the ethnic and religious issues”.
In 2011 during an interview with Oriental Outlook, a magazine affiliated to Xinhua, Tahir denied the accusation that Xinjiang had ever been invaded, although human rights activists and exiled Uygur groups blame cultural and religious repressions against Uygur by the government amid an influx of mostly Han ethnic Chinese.
He also claimed that poverty and underdevelopment in the region were the key reasons for local Uygur to be affected by terrorism.
