Two sentenced to death in China for pre-Games attack

A CHINESE court yesterday sentenced two people to death for what it said was an attempt to sabotage the Beijing Olympics with an attack in the far-west region of Xinjiang that killed 17 police four days before the Games.

The Xinhua News Agency said the sentences were handed down by the Kashgar Intermediate People’s Court.

The August 4 attack took place in the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar near the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Two men stole a truck and rammed it into a group of police on their morning jog. The men continued attacking with homemade bombs and knives, killing 17 officers and wounding 15 others.

“The Kashgar court said the two conducted the terrorist attack to sabotage the Beijing Olympic Games that began August 8,” Xinhua reported.

It identified the two as Kashgar natives, Abdurahman Azat, 33, and Kurbanjan Hemit, 28.

Chinese authorities say militants among Uighurs, Turkic-speaking Muslims, are leading a violent Islamic separatist movement in Xinjiang.

Critics accuse Beijing of using claims of terrorism as an excuse to crack down on peaceful pro-independence sentiment and expressions of Uighur identity.

About 1.5% of China’s 1.3 billion people are Muslim, according to the US State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report. But not all of them are Uighurs or live in Xinjiang.

The August 4 attack was the start of a wave of violence in Xinjiang. Six days later, bombers struck in Kuqa, Xinjiang, targeting a police station, government building, bank and shops.

In November, the same Kashgar court sentenced to death five ethnic Muslims who were accused of separatist activities.