USAToday.com

June 19, 2001

BEIJING (AP) — A former cotton mill worker convicted in a string of bombings that killed 108 people in northern China was executed by gunshot Sunday along with two people who sold him explosives, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Jin Ruchao's execution came after the Higher People's Court of Hebei province rejected his appeal. Also put to death were Wang Yushun and Hao Fengqin, whose appeals also were turned down, Xinhua said. They were convicted for supplying Jin with ammonia nitrate.

A fourth man, accused of selling Jin 50 detonators and 20 fuses, was also set to be executed, but the court suspended the ruling for two years. His sentence can be commuted to life in jail for good behavior.

Jin, 41, confessed to setting off the March 16 explosions that rocked four apartment blocks in Shijiazhuang, an industrial center 170 miles southwest of Beijing.

In testimony shown on national television, Jin said after his arrest that he acted alone and was trying to take revenge against relatives, his ex-wife and others with whom he had fought. His stepmother, ex-wife and her parents lived in the targeted buildings. Jin also lived in one of the buildings and had a long-running property dispute with neighbors, state media reported.

By David Rennie in Beijing - Telegraph.co.uk

19 Apr 2001

CHINA sentenced four people to death yesterday for their role in bomb blasts that killed at least 108 people in their beds in the industrial city of Shijiazhuang.

The unusually rapid and much publicised trial saw the star defendant, Jin Ruchao, 41, "confess openly" that he single-handedly planted four home-made bombs in workers' dormitories last month for personal reasons of revenge. China will be hoping that Jin's swift execution will dampen speculation that the blasts, which took place within an hour, could not have been detonated by one man. Unusually, the court was packed with the relatives of victims

The Xinhua state news agency said prosecutors told the court that Jin blew up the buildings "because of his hatred towards his neighbour, his stepmother, his ex-wife and his sister". The other three defendants sentenced to death were convicted of selling Jin the illegal explosives and detonators used in the blasts, which ripped through residential blocks belonging to state-owned cotton mills in Shijiazhuang shortly after dawn on March 16.

The Shijiazhuang Intermediate People's Court passed death sentences on Wang Yushun and Hao Fengqin, two villagers from the province of Hebei, who were convicted of selling Jin 1,330lb of dynamite from their illegal fireworks factory and helping him with a test explosion. The court also passed a death sentence on Hu Xiaohong, a labourer from Shijiazhuang who sold Jin detonators and paper fuses worth less than £3.

The harsh sentences on Jin's suppliers are presumably linked to a national "Strike Hard" anti-crime campaign aimed at soothing public fears that society is becoming increasingly violent. Though no convincing alternative explanation for the blasts has been forthcoming, the official version of how Jin carried out the blasts is barely credible.

Hospital workers and local residents have cast serious doubt on the official death toll, saying the true figure was much higher. According to state media, Jin hired several motor tricycles to carry 1,277lb of dynamite, packed in sacks marked "chicken feed", to the building in which he lived and the three apartment blocks in which his targets lived.

Jin then triggered each bomb by himself, dashing from blast to blast by taxi. Jin, who is partially deaf, reportedly has great difficulty communicating with strangers and has to write down instructions on paper. He was arrested on March 23 in the southern port of Beihai, after a three-day manhunt. He reportedly confessed immediately to causing the explosions and to murdering of his former mistress, Wei Zhihua, in the south-western province of Yunnan earlier that month.

Shijiazhuang has been blighted by widespread lay-offs of state owned workers. It was hit last autumn by a series of smaller bus and department store bombings. The government executed another lone bomber for those attacks, which local residents allege were actually linked to feuding gangsters and corrupt officials. Illegal explosives are relatively easy to buy in China and bomb blasts linked to feuds, labour protests and gang rivalries are increasingly common.

Independent.co.uk

Wednesday, 18 April 2001

Four men have gone on trial in China charged with a string of bombings that killed 108 people and could face a death sentence if convicted.

By Rose Tang - CNN.com

March 27, 2001

HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- A deaf man detained over a string of explosions that killed 108 people in north China has confessed how he single-handedly plotted the almost simultaneous blasts, the People's Daily has reported.

The newspaper, China's top communist party mouthpiece, on Tuesday published a detailed and graphic confession by Jin Ruchao along with photos of his arrest and interrogation, his divorce papers and his sister's report to police.

The surprisingly high-speed investigation was completed 11 days after the four pre-dawn blasts that killed 108 and injured 38 in the industrial city of Shijiazhuang.

Earlier police said Jin, 41, was helped by accomplices or a criminal gang in the city.

Jin was arrested last week in the southern coastal city of Beihai, in China's biggest manhunt in 18 years.

Jin told police he returned to Shijiazhuang in March after murdering his girlfriend in southern province of Yunnan, the paper said.

He bought explosives from Wang Yushun, who runs an illegal explosives workshop at a village near Shijiazhuang.

Wang made the explosives from ammonium nitrate and put them in a dozen yellow plastic bags marked as "chicken feed" and charged Jin 950 yuan ($115).

Wang has also been arrested.

Jin bought fuses and detonators from a miner last year and hid them under a pipe at a factory outside the city.

The paper said Jin over several trips rented a broken motorcycle, a van, and a tricycle to transport the explosives to another village just outside Shijianzhuang, lying to people that he was carrying stock feed.

He then rented a red motorcycle to transfer the explosives to several dormitory buildings in the city on March 15.

"After busily doing all these, Jin Ruchao hid himself in a heat pipe at a power plant and went for a sleep," the paper described.

Jin got up at 2 am and called a taxi to a railway station where he hired a strong-built tricycle driver to transfer bags of "chicken feed".

Jin placed the bags by himself in stairways and next to walls of the dormitory buildings.

The paper said Jin was sentenced to 10 years in jail for rape in 1988 and conducted a vendetta against people who lived in the dormitories that he blew up.

The dormitories housed Jin's stepmother, his estranged wife, her husband and parents, and his sister who had been in a dispute with him over the sale of their mother's flat.

About 4:16 am, Jin blew up two dormitory buildings at Number Three Cotton Mill and hailed a taxi to set off explosives at another dormitory building at a construction company at 4:30am.

The next two blasts went off with a 15-minute gap between them. During these short breaks, Jin managed to hire different taxis and rushed around the city to detonate his explosives.

The paper quoted Jin's sister Jin Lixiang as saying he had a long fascination over bombs -- he collected bomb-making chemistry books, and made explosives at home in 1988.

The paper even published a photo of Jin's divorce paper that police found in his pocket when he was arrested.

"This was a fight between the righteous and the evil," the paper declares.

However local residents in Shijiazhuang are skeptical as to how Jin, who only communicates with a pen and paper, could have masterminded the blasts so skillfully.

Rumors around the city suggested laid-off workers may be responsible.

The city, a textile industry center, is full of laid-off workers who became vicitms in a mass restructuring of the textile sector.

PeopleDaily.com.cn

Monday, March 26, 2001

Hatred towards his neighbor, his ex-wife, ex-mother-in-law and a lover motivated Jin Ruchao to cause the explosions that killed 108 people in the north China city of Shijiazhuang, police disclosed Saturday.

Police found that Jin used to live in apartment 201 of Unit 2 of the demolished No. 16 dormitory owned by the No. 3 Cotton Mill, and he was on bad terms with the family that lived in apartment 301 due to a dispute over property.

Jin, 41, jobless, was sentensed to a 10-year imprisonment in 1988 for raping.

Before the explosions, Jin had threatened on several occasions to kill the family by blowing up the building.

The devastated apartment No. 15 was the home of Jin's stepmother, who was hated by Jin, while another building destroyed in the explosions was the home of the parents of Shang Meilan, Jin 's ex-wife.

Police found that the dormitory where Shang Meilan and her husband lived was also destroyed in the explosions.

The fourth building destroyed in the explosions was a two-story apartment-block, which had been previously owned by Jin's own mother, but was sold by Jin's sister Jin Lixiang. Jin was very unhappy about the sale of his mother's building as he was given only 10,000 yuan (US$1205) from the proceeds.

Jin's sister Jin Lixiang said Jin had always liked making dynamite as well as playing around with sulphur, and had collected books on how to make dynamite.

She said her brother first started producing dynamite at their home in 1988.

Police found that Jin had cohabited for three months with Wei Zhihua, a girl from Southwest China's Yunnan province, but Wei left Jin after taking away 600 yuan from him.

Jin later borrowed 1,000 yuan from his sister to cover the expense of traveling to Yunnan as he wanted to take revenge on Wei Zhihua. Jin killed Wei on March 9 and fled.

When Jin was captured Friday morning in Beihai, a port city in south China, police discovered the ID card of Wei Zhihua, a divorce certificate and some dynamite in Jin's bag.

Jin later confessed to police how he bought the dynamite and smuggled it to Shijiazhuang after he killed Wei Zhihua, and also how he planned and went about blowing-up the buildings.

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, police said.

Jin is accused of causing four explosions on March 16 in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei Province. Four residential buildings were damaged, with 108 residents killed and 38 others injured. All four explosions occurred within about one hour and most of the deaths occurred at the No. 3 Cotton Mill.

Police launched a nationwide manhunt for Jin Ruchao, the major suspect in the case, just a few hours after the explosions. But Jin, a resident in one of the damaged buildings, was found to have fled soon after the explosions.

Police in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region were informed of Jin's whereabouts in Beihai Thursday night and were able to catch him at 8:20 am Friday.

Jin Ruchao, a man who is blamed for causing explosions that killed 108 people in the north China city of Shijiazhuang, was caught alive Friday morning in Beihai, a port city in south China, the Ministry of Public Security announced.

Jin is accused of causing four blasts on March 16 in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei Province. Four residential buildings were damaged, with 108 residents killed and 38 others injured.

The explosions struck within about one hour. Most of the deaths occurred at the No. 3 Cotton Mill. A five-story building there housing 48 families was reduced to rubble. The three other buildings suffered less damage.

Since the explosions, both the central and provincial governments have attached great attention and gone all out in organizing the rescue work and handling problems arising from the explosions.

The police launched a nationwide manhunt for 41-year-old Jin Ruchao, who is believed to be a major suspect in the explosions. Jin, a resident in one of the damaged buildings, was found to have fled soon after the explosions.

Police in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region was informed of Jin's whereabouts in Beihai Thursday night and were able to catch him at 8:20 a.m. today.

Police say they are still hunting the person or persons responsible for the four explosions that killed 108 people and injured 38 in the city of Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province on Friday.

The city's Public Security Bureau issued a notice on Sunday saying that Jin Ruchao, a 41-year-old deaf man, is suspected of setting off the deadly blasts. Jin is now wanted by the Ministry of Public Security for "especially serious crimes."

The notice also offered a reward of 100,000 yuan (US$12,000) to people who provide clues which lead to the capture of the suspect, double the figure offered by the Ministry of Public Security.

No valuable clues have so far been reported to the police through the bureau's hotline, an unnamed officer said Monday.

An earlier "wanted" circular from the Ministry of Public Security had not directly linked Jin, a resident of the No 16 building which was totally destroyed in the blast, with the explosions. They did say he was suspected of killing a woman in South China's Yunnan Province on March 9.

Jin was jailed for 10 years in 1988 for rape, West China City Daily (Huaxi Dushi Bao) reported Monday. The paper also said the four targeted sites all had connections with Jin in being the residences of his families, relatives and ex-wife.

All 38 people injured in the explosions have received prompt treatment and five of the seriously injured have been declared out of danger, according to local hospital sources.

Fifteen of the injured have been discharged from hospital and another 11 seriously injured are being treated by medical experts from local hospitals and Beijing, backed up with the best medical resources available.

The Shijiazhuang municipal government has put aside a special fund to cover medical expenses and the funeral costs of those killed in the blasts.

The No 3 Cotton Mill has begun to deal with the aftermath of the explosion.

Each victim's family has received a temporary "living allowance" of 5,000 yuan (US$603) from the factory, said sources close to the mill.

One said the Changshan Group, which owns the mill, has offered hostel accommodation to those who were on night shift as the explosions took place and lost their homes.

Relatives of the victims from outside the city have also been accommodated and given food, said one source.

Factory officials held a meeting on Sunday with victims' relatives to discuss compensation, although the details have not been released.

The blast scene was still being cleared up to calculate the cost of the damage, said one source.

Yucai Street, where the No 16 building is located, is still cordoned off by police.

The explosions occurred at around 5 am on March 16 in four places, including the residential buildings of the No 3 Cotton Mill of Shijiazhuang.

The explosions in this capital of Hebei Province on March 16, which killed 108 people and injured 38, were criminal acts, according to the findings of preliminary investigations by the public security department.

The explosion sites have been cleared up and further investigation is underway.

The central, provincial and local governments have shown great concern about the explosions that occurred early Friday morning, and have mobilized armed police and officers and men of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) for the rescue work.

Under instructions from the central leadership, the Hebei Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and Hebei Provincial Government have called for doing everything possible to treat the injured. Doctors from local hospitals and the hospitals of the PLA units stationed in Shijiazhuang, along with experts from Beijing, are contributing their services and expertise.