A Chinese court has sentenced two teenagers to death for what the authorities said was their role in the murder of a prominent Islamic cleric in the western region of Xinjiang, the state news media reported Monday.<\/p>\n
By ANDREW JACOBS
SEPT. 29, 2014<\/p>\n
BEIJING \u2014 A Chinese court has sentenced two teenagers to death for what the authorities said was their role in the murder of a prominent Islamic cleric in the western region of Xinjiang, the state news media reported Monday.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said the defendants played key roles in the assassination this summer of Jume Tahir, a government-backed imam who presided over China\u2019s largest mosque, Id Kah, a 15th-century landmark in the oasis city of Kashgar.<\/p>\n
The verdict, issued Sunday and just two months after Mr. Tahir\u2019s killing, underscores the authorities\u2019 determination to display a firm resolve in the face of spiraling violence in the region.<\/p>\n
The news reports did not disclose the ethnicity of the defendants, but their names made it clear they are members of China\u2019s Uighur minority, a largely Muslim people who have long resented Beijing\u2019s governance of the region and have become increasingly bold in their resistance to what many say are heavy-handed policies.<\/p>\n
Despite an overwhelming show of force across southern Xinjiang, a wave of violence has claimed at least 400 lives in the past year, and hundreds of people have been detained. Most of the dead have been Uighurs shot by the police, although scores of Han, members of China\u2019s dominant group, have been killed in ethnic bloodletting.<\/p>\n
Mr. Tahir, 74, was an official with the state-run Xinjiang Islamic Association and an especially divisive figure among China\u2019s 10 million Uighurs. Frequently quoted<\/a> in the state news media, he was a reliable supporter of government restrictions on so-called unlawful religious practices. Those restrictions include rules barring adolescents from mosques and prohibitions on underground madrassas, as well as on veils for women and long beards on men.<\/p>\n The imam was reportedly stabbed to death<\/a> as he left sunrise services on July 30; the police later shot and killed two suspects and arrested a third, Nurmemet Abidilimit, 19, who was among those sentenced to death on Sunday, according to the official Xinhua news agency.<\/p>\n The other man who received the death penalty, Gheni Hasan, 18, was accused of training the assailants and, more broadly, of \u201cforming and leading terrorist groups,\u201d Xinhua said. A third defendant, Atawulla Tursun, was given a life sentence.<\/p>\n People\u2019s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party, said that the men had been influenced by religious extremist videos from abroad<\/a> and that their decision to kill the imam was motivated by a desire to \u201cdo something big to raise their reputations as terrorists.\u201d Previous official news accounts said that Mr. Abidilimit had confessed his role in the attack and implicated the others.<\/p>\n Xinhua said the three were represented by government-appointed lawyers, but it did not provide their names or say whether the defendants intended to appeal. Asked about the case, a man who picked up the phone at the People\u2019s Intermediate Court in Kashgar, where the trial took place, declined to comment and hung up.<\/p>\n China\u2019s criminal justice system is notoriously opaque, and court proceedings in Xinjiang are especially sensitive and off limits to foreign journalists. Security restrictions in the region make it difficult to confirm the government\u2019s version of events.<\/p>\n