June 25
CHINA:
Court upholds death penalty for man in bank blast
A higher people's court on Monday upheld the death penalty for a man convicted
of causing a blast that killed 2 people and injured 15 others in central
China's Hubei province.
Wang Haijian, 25, was sentenced to death on May 14 by the Wuhan Municipal
Intermediate People's Court after he detonated a homemade bomb in front of a
bank in the provincial capital Wuhan in a robbery attempt late last year.
Wang's accomplices Wang Wei and Wang An'an were given jail terms of 10 and 6
years, respectively, at the intermediate court.
The 3 appealed their sentences a few days later.
However, the Hubei Provincial Higher People's Court on Monday rejected their
appeals and upheld the previous sentences.
Wang Haijian began learning to make explosives in October 2010 and later tested
his homemade bombs with Wang Wei and Wang An'an. The 3 had been plotting to rob
a bank before Wang Wei and Wang An'an were deterred by the threat of being
caught and punished, and they pulled out of the scheme in August 2011.
The bomb went off in front of a China Construction Bank branch on Dec. 1, 2011,
when clerks were about to load money into a vehicle. Wang Haijian fled the
scene on a motorcycle after the robbery attempt failed.
The blast killed two passersby, left 15 people with minor injuries and resulted
in financial losses of about 127,000 yuan (20,320 U.S. dollars).
Wang Haijian's death penalty is still subject to review by the Supreme People's
Court.
(source: Xinhua News)
NORTH KOREA:
North Korea 'executes four returned refugees'
North Korea has publicly executed 4 refugees who were repatriated by China and
sent 40 others to its notorious prison camps, a South Korean activist said on
Monday.
South Korean rights groups say there are 6 political prison camps in the North
holding around 200,000 detainees.
China has repatriated 44 fugitives from its communist neighbour in recent
months, said Kim Heung-Kwang, who heads NK Intellectuals Solidarity, a
Seoul-based defectors' group.
4 of them were executed and 40 sent to camps for political prisoners, he told a
seminar. South Korean rights groups say there are 6 political prison camps in
the North holding around 200,000 detainees.
Kim said he had obtained his information from a source inside the North, but
gave no details. The South's unification ministry, which is in charge of
cross-border affairs, declined to comment.
Tens of thousands of North Koreans looking to escape hunger or repression in
their communist homeland have fled in recent years. Virtually all cross the
border to China, which repatriates those fugitives it catches.
Beijing says they are economic migrants rather than refugees, a policy
criticised by international rights groups.
(source: The Telegraph)
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