Teacher killer stands trial in Beijing

The Beijing News
July 7, 2009

Fu Chengli, formerly a student at the China University of Political Science and Law, stood trial yesterday on the charge of murdering Cheng Chunming, a law professor at the same university.

According to a report in The Beijing News, Fu admitted his crime willingly in the course of the investigation but showed no remorse. He insisted that Cheng took sexual advantage of his ex-girlfriend by exploiting his position and said that Cheng did not deserve to be a teacher. Fu also stated that he hoped that Cheng's death would serve as a warning to others.

Fu's girlfriend said that her relationship with Cheng, which lasted for a year, was consensual. The court has not reached a verdict.

The headline about Fu appeared on a front page dominated, like most newspapers across the country, by news of the riots in Urumqi that began over the weekend. The top headline in this paper reads "Full efforts to track down violent criminals" and is followed by the subhead, "140 dead, over 800 wounded in Urumqi riot; Using the Shaoguan Incident as an excuse, Rebiyа Kаdeer incited unrest; Hundreds of participants arrested."

Xinhua's latest figures a death toll of 156.

Inside, the newspaper provided more details on the "Shaoguan Incident":

At 11 pm on June 25, Huang Cuiling, an 18-year-old student from Guangdong who was interning in the Xuri toy factory in Shaoguan, mistakenly entered a Xinjiang workers' dormitory, where she was teased by some Xinjiang workers. Huang screamed and called her teacher for help. A security guard who happened to be patrolling nearby came over and demanded to take away one of the Xinjiang workers, but was prevented by others from doing so.

After Huang returned to her dormitory, she told her co-workers what had happened, leading to a brawl between hundreds of non-Xinjiang workers and Xinjiang workers on the morning of June 26. Thirty one Han Chinese from the interior were wounded with four suffering serious injuries. Of the 37 wounded from Xinjiang, 29 were seriously injured. The two who died were from the Xinjiang side.

A reprint of a Xinhua report quoted Ma Pinyan, a researcher at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, who echoes the official line first given by Nur Bekri yesterday:

Overseas separatists have never ceased their attempt to undermine the solidarity and stability of Xinjiang, especially during the Beijing Olympic Games, they launched a series of terrorist attack, all of them were crushed very soon. They had been hoping to make another one before the National Day, or I should say that they had been looking for an opportunity to carry out this riot. Heavy casualties are unexpected, but I believe that the Autonomous Region Party Committee and people's government will take control over the situation and guarantee the stability of Xinjiang.