Chinese blast suspect driven by hatred

Chinese blast suspect driven by hatred
Reuters

BEIJING, MARCH 25: The captured suspect behind a string of explosions that killed 108 people in the Chinese city of Shijiazhuang acted alone and was driven by personal hatreds, Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.Each of the four dormitories blown up by Jin Ruchao was connected to people he held grudges against, including his ex-wife, stepmother, sister and former neighbours, Xinhua reported, quoting police interrogators in the northern city. A week before the blasts on March 16 he travelled to the southern province of Yunnan and killed a former live-in lover who had stolen 600 yuan ($72.50) from him, Xinhua said.

Jin’s sister told police he had a long fascination with dynamite and taught himself how to make it at home, the official news agency said.

The convicted rapist, said to be deaf, was picked up in the southern beach resort of Beihai last Friday after a nationwide manhunt in which a bounty of 150,000 yuan was put on his head.

The speed with which police have released details of their investigation appears to indicate a desire by authorities to lay to rest a widespread belief that the blasts were somehow linked to deep-seated problems in Chinese society, including high unemployment, corruption and gangs.

Many residents of Shijiazhuang, a depressed centre of China’s cotton manufacturing industry, doubt one person could have planned and executed a series of coordinated explosions that went off within an hour of each other just before dawn.

Rumours have been swirling around the city that laid-off workers were to blame.Others suspect the blasts were linked to feuding between gangsters and city officials over the corrupt spoils from state enterprises being sold off amid industrial restructuring.

“Judging from what Jin has confessed and the evidence the police collected at the venue of the crime, the conclusion can be drawn that Jin Ruchao is totally responsible for the fatal explosions,” Xinhua quoted police as saying. The official death toll is 108, with 38 injured, but unofficial estimates go much higher. Xinhua said Jin, 41, once lived in a five-storey dormitory flattened in the blasts and feuded with a neighbouring family. He had threatened several times to kill the family by blowing up the building owned by the Number 3 cotton mill.

Other damaged blocks housed Jin’s stepmother, his ex-wife and her husband and the parents of his ex-wife, Xinhua said.

An apartment in a two-storey block had been previously owned by Jin’s mother, but was sold by Jin’s sister, Xinhua said. Jin was unhappy because he had only received 10,000 yuan from the proceeds, the agency said.

When Jin was captured police discovered the ID card of his murdered girlfriend, Wei Zhihua, a divorce certificate and some dynamite in his bag, Xinhua said.He confessed he bought the dynamite and smuggled it to Shijiazhuang after the murder and told police interrogators how he planned the explosions, Xinhua said.State television showed pictures of Jin last Friday looking relaxed and smiling in a grey shirt and brown trousers as police in camouflage uniforms bundled him into a car in Beihai.

The explosions sparked fears around China over public safety and alarmed senior leaders already worried over social breakdown amid wrenching industrial reform in Chinese cities.

China immediately launched a nationwide crackdown on the use of explosives, which are widely available and frequently used by ethnic separatists, blackmailers, criminal gangs, robbers, and even jilted lovers.