‘Missing’ HK bookseller handed himself into police
Print Edition
A HONG Kong bookseller reported as “missing” by some foreign media, turned himself in to police on the Chinese mainland in October, after fleeing the country more than 10 years ago while on probation for a drink-driving offense.
Gui Minhai, who vanished from his apartment in Thailand in October, voluntarily returned to China to answer a conviction from 2004 for killing a student.
“I am returning to surrender by personal choice, it has nothing to do with anyone,” Gui said in a China Central Television broadcast.
“This is a personal responsibility that I ought to bear.”
Gui was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, after killing a female student in Ningbo while driving drunk. He fled in August 2006.
“Turning myself in is a voluntary choice of my own, and has nothing to do with anybody else,” said Gui, a Swedish national and owner of Causeway Bay Books in Hong Kong.
“This is my responsibility. I don’t want anyone or any institution to be involved or get in the way of my returning, nor do I want any malicious hype.”
Earlier this month, the Swedish Foreign Ministry said it had raised Gui’s case with the Chinese ambassador to Stockholm.
“Although I hold Swedish citizenship, deep down I still think of myself as a Chinese. My roots are in China.
“I hope the Swedish authorities will respect my personal choices, my rights and my privacy, and allow me to deal with my own issues,” he said.
Police said Gui was linked to other crimes and is cooperating with investigators in an ongoing probe, without giving any further details.
“I am taking my legal responsibilities and willing to accept any punishment,” he said.
Gui, 51, was convicted of drink driving in 2004 and sentenced to 2 years in prison with a 2-year reprieve after he hit and killed a college student on the night of December 8, 2003.
Gui fled the country three months later and remained a fugitive until October last year.
“I was afraid of going to prison ... I knew there was no future for me in the country, so I thought I’d better go,” Gui said.
In the following years, he lived with an increasing “sense of guilt and insecurity,” he said.
“I was tortured, psychologically. I had nightmares and suffered from hypertension and heart diseases. It was unbearable.”
The death of his father last June was the final straw, he said.
“I couldn’t even go to my father’s funeral,” he said. “My mother is also over 80 years old and I miss her. So I had been thinking about going back to my country and turning myself in.”
“I didn’t have the courage to do it earlier. Now I think is the time,” he said, adding he wished to extend his apologies to the relatives of his victim.
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