Press Interpreter

02/19/06 -- Previously Awarded the Merit Citation Class III, Recently Sentenced to Death

Xu Bin, a former member of China’s first Narcotics Squad and the first to serve as Head of the Narcotics Squad in the Public Security Bureau (PSB) of Wanding, Yunnan, decorated three times with the Merit Citation Class III; Xia Shaoxiong, formerly a coworker and subordinate of Xu Bin, and the third to serve as Head of the Narcotics Squad in the Wanding, Yunnan PSB, decorated once with the Merit Citation Class III. Now, they have become drug dealers, sinking to become prisoners: because after retirement the two men gradually followed the road to trafficking drugs, they have recently been sentenced to death by the Intermediate People’s Court of Kunming, a sentence suspended for two years.

Xu Bin was born in Luxi City (located in the De Hong Autonomous Region of the Dai Nationality and Jingpo Nationality in Yunnan Province) in 1958 and was later the first Head of Narcotics for the Wanding, Yunnan PSB. At the end of 1990, after leaving the PSB, he worked in the import and export business in Luxi City, often traveling to the border of China and Burma. Gradually, he began using drugs and stared down the road of selling drugs to support his habit. Xia Shaoxiong was born in Ruili City (also located in the De Hong Autonomous Region of the Dai Nationality and Jingpo Nationality in Yunnan Province) and in 1985, after demobilizing from the Armed Police Force, went to work for the PSB in Wanding. In 1992, Xia Shaoxiong was appointed to serve as the third Head of the Wanding PSB Narcotics Squad. In 1997, after Xia retired from the PSB, he also gradually moved down the road to using and selling drugs.

According to the charges brought by the prosecution, the Kunming PSB Second Narcotics Squad apprehended Xia Shaoxiong and Yang Anguo in the midst of a drug deal in a room at the Yunan Auditorium.* At the scene, the agents seized 282 grams of crystal meth capsules (commonly called Ice) sold by the two men, 30 grams of opium hidden in Xia Shaoxiong’s briefcase, and 15 grams of crystal meth and 25 grams of opium hidden on Yang Anguo’s body. Besides this, the agents also seized a rifle from the trunk of Yang Anguo’s car and 13 bullets. According to Xia Shaoxiong’s confession, that day the agents also discovered 368 grams of crystal meth capsules in a package sent by Mr. Yang from Mang City to Kunming. On the 14th of that same month, the agents apprehended Xu Bin, who had sold the drugs to Xia Shaoxiong, at Wanding Garden #9 in Ruili City. In Mr. Xu’s home, the agents discovered 977 grams of crystal meth capsules.

On March 20th, 2004, Xu bin, Xia Shaoxiong and Yang Anguo were allowed to be arrested. On November 29th of that same year, the Kunming Procuratorate indicted Xu Bin and Xia Shaoxiong on charges of drug trafficking and indicted Yang Anguo on charges of drug trafficking and illegal possession of firearms. The Kunming Procuratorate sent the men to be tried at the Kunming Intermediate People’s Court.

The Kunming Intermediate People’s Court tried the case and felt that Xu and Xia had turned a blind eye to the law in selling drugs, that the amount of drugs was very large, and that the facts were clear, therefore the men should be sentenced according to the law. But after their capture, the two men’s ‘confessional attitude’ was good and they actively helped the PSB in their investigative work, and thus fit the scenario for leniency in punishment. Accordingly, the Kunming Intermediate People’s Court ruled that the two men would be sentenced to death with a two-year suspension of execution, deprived of their political rights for the rest of their lives, and stripped of all their personal property. Yang Anguo was convicted of drug trafficking, for which he was sentenced to 11 years in prison and fined 10,000 RMB**; he was also convicted of illegal possession of a firearm and sentenced to two years in prison. The two convictions are to be combined and Mr. Yang must serve 12 years in prison and pay the 10,000 RMB fine. After the ruling was announced, two of the men expressed dissatisfaction with the decision and are already appealing.

[Full Article]

*The Website for this hotel (www.yunanhotel.com) does not indicate the official English translation for the hotel’s name, but it seems to be Yunan Auditorium or, alternatively, Yunan Hotel.

**Roughly $1200

From the Xinhua News Wire

--Translated by D. Owen Young

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