Wheelchair-bound Beijing airport bomber gets 6 years in jail
Print Edition
Ji Zhongxing, who was charged with setting off explosives at the Beijing Capital International Airport in July in what he said was an act of protest at alleged police brutality, was sentenced to six years in jail yesterday.
Ji, a 33-year-old wheelchair-bound man, was jailed for causing an explosion in a public place, according to a ruling by the Chaoyang District People’s Court in Beijing.
Ji, a native of east China’s Shandong Province, lost his left hand as he set off a homemade explosive device outside the airport’s Terminal 3 arrivals gate on July 20. A police officer at the scene suffered minor injuries in the explosion.
Ji handed out leaflets that read “paying off old scores” at the arrivals gate for international tourists. He held the explosive device high for passers-by to see and warned them to move away. He ignited it when a police officer tried to stop him.
The explosion caused chaos at the scene and forced the closure of the arrivals gate and evacuation of passengers.
The court said yesterday any actions to seek justice must be done in a “legal, rational and orderly manner.”
“People must not infringe others’ lawful rights or endanger public safety by taking extreme actions under the name of defending rights,” the city’s legal authorities said in a separate Sina Weibo post.
Ji received a light sentence because he warned people to stay away at the scene of the blast and confessed his crimes in the court, the ruling said.
Ji, who appeared in a stretcher in the courtroom, has been in custody since July 21. He was wearing pyjamas, his hands folded, his head shaved and a white blanket pulled up over his body.
He was flanked by two uniformed police officers. The court said Ji’s lawyers and relatives were among the nearly 40 people in attendance.
Ji did not appeal in court and said he needed to consider the appeals process further.
Ji’s lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan said his client had hoped to attract police attention so he could be detained and discuss his beating in 2005 by police assistants in the southern city of Dongguan.
Ji had denied exploding the bomb deliberately, claiming it went off accidentally as he was shifting it from one hand to the other. A former motorcycle driver, he has been confined to a wheelchair since being allegedly beaten up in 2005.
Ji, from the eastern Heze city, had been petitioning authorities for years after the 2005 attack, which left him paralyzed from waist down and more than US$16,000 in debt, his elder brother Ji Zhongji said.
Response to the verdict online was generally positive, although some questioned whether the government was sincere in investigating Ji’s earlier beating.
Legal commentator Xu Xin wrote in his verified account on the Twitter-like Weibo that Ji’s sentence was relatively light.
“Well, that’s that. At least in prison, his life will have some sort of order,” Xu wrote.
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