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Billionaire executed for contract murder
(Shanghai Daily/AP)
Updated: 2006-03-18 12:51
A Chinese tycoon once worth more than US$360 million has been executed by
lethal injection for having a man who tried to blackmail him killed, a court
statement and news reports said Saturday.
Yuan Baojing and two
accomplices were put to death by lethal injection Friday after a court in
China's northeastern Liaoning province upheld a death sentence handed down last
year, said a notice on the official Web site of China's courts.
A fourth
criminal, Yuan Baofu, was sentenced to death, but the sentence was suspended for
two years. That means the death sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment
if he is a model inmate over two years.
The murder victim, Wang Xing, had helped the billionaire in the attempted
murder of a businessman in southwestern China's Sichuan Province.
News photos in several Chinese papers showed a bespectacled Yuan, wearing a
white track suit and a long white scarf, standing in front of the judge in the
Liaoyang City Intermediate People's Court.
Yuan appeared "very agitated"
as he was escorted out of the court, and was executed about 15 minutes later,
the paper said.
Yuan, 40, was convicted in January last year of hiring a
hit man in a failed plot to kill a business partner who had caused Yuan's
company to lose 90 million yuan (US$11 million; euro8 million) in futures
trading, according to earlier news reports.
The man who found the hit
man for Yuan then blackmailed him, and Yuan paid his brother and then his cousin
to kill the blackmailer. The blackmailer was shot to death in October 2003.
The charge cited for the execution was "intentional murder," the Web
site said. Yuan's brother, Yuan Baoqi, and cousin, Yuan Baosen, were also
executed Friday, it said.
Yuan Baojing, a Liaoyang native, registered
his Beijing Jianhao Industrial Development Company in Beijing's Huairou District
in 1992, the Supreme People's Court reported.
Six months later, he made more than 2 million yuan (US$249,000) of profits.
Then he invested in the securities and bonds markets before acquiring more than
60 companies. His assets were valued at more than 3 billion yuan as of 1996, the
supreme court said.
He believed businessman friend Liu Han's manipulation of a broker caused him
to lose nearly 100 million yuan in Sichuan Province, he told Yuan Baoqi and Wang
at a Beijing hotel in late 1996.
Wang suggested punishing Liu. Yuan offered a reward of 160,000 yuan for
murdering Liu.
Contract killer Li Haiyang fired two shots at Liu in a Sichuan hotel in
February 1997. But the bullets missed Liu, and Li fled. Li was caught and
sentenced to life imprisonment.
Starting from 1997, Yuan Baojing turned down Wang's requests to borrow money,
and the latter threatened many times to blow the whistle on his crime of
organizing the attempted murder.
In early 2001, Yuan Baoqi suggested killing Wang. Yuan Baojing agreed, and
gave him 300,000 yuan to pay the contract killers. Yuan Baoqi found Yuan Baofu
and Yuan Baosen.
On November 15, 2001, Yuan Baosen and Yuan Baofu stabbed Wang repeatedly,
leaving him seriously injured, shortly after Wang left home. The duo fled.
Yuan Baoqi gave Yuan Baofu 90,000 yuan.
Wang continued threatening Yuan Baojing. Then Yuan Baoqi paid Yuan Baofu
another 180,000 yuan to "finish the work."
Yuan Baofu and Yuan Baosen waited for Wang near midnight on October 4, 2003,
when he left a majhong games shop in Lioayang. As Wang opened the gate to his
apartment building, they shot him twice with a hunting rifle.
Yuan's wife Zhuoma, a well-known Tibetan dancer who goes by one name, was not
allowed to be present at the execution, the Beijing Youth Daily said. She was
seen sobbing in a car outside the execution site and later received Yuan's ashes
from the courts, it said.
The couple have a 4-year-old son, according to
an earlier report in the North Morning Post newspaper.
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