China executes Tiananmen Square attackers

BEIJING — China has executed eight people for “terrorist attacks,” including three it described as “masterminding” a suicide car crash in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 2013, state media announced.

The official Xinhua news agency said early yesterday that the eight were involved in several cases connected to the northwestern region of Xinjiang, where Beijing says separatist militants are behind a string of attacks that have rocked China in recent months.

Three of the condemned,

All eight condemned men were tagged in “terrorist attacks,” including three it described as “masterminding” a suicide car crash in Tiananmen Square in 2013

named by Xinhua as Huseyin Guxur, Yusup Wherniyas and Yusup Ehmet, were “deprived of political rights to life” for their role in the brazen assault in Tiananmen Square in October.

Two tourists were killed in the attack, in which a car rammed into bystanders on the iconic square in the heart of Beijing before bursting into flames.

Three attackers also died in the incident Beijing blamed on Xinjiang separatists.

Xinhua said five others were executed, including Rozi Eziz, who was convicted of an attack on police in Aksu in 2013.

Abdusalam Elim was executed on charges of “organizing and leading a terrorist organization,” Memet Tohtiyusup had “watched audio-visual materials on religious extremism” and “killed an innocent civilian” in 2013, and Abdumomin Imin was described as a “terrorist ringleader” who led Bilal Berdi in attacks on po- lice in 2011 and 2013.

Xinhua, which cited the Xinjiang region publicity department in its report, did not say when the executions were carried out.

The sentences underscore the tough approach Beijing is taking to increasingly brazen and violent incidents.

The Tiananmen attack was one of several that have rocked China since last year, and which Beijing has blamed on Xinjiang separatists.

The far-western region is the resource-rich homeland of the Uighurs and other groups, and periodically sees ethnic tensions and discontent with the government burst into violence.

In March, a horrific knife assault at a railway station in the southern city of Kunming left 29 dead and 143 wounded.

Two months later, 39 people were killed, along with four attackers, and more than 90 wounded when assailants threw explosives and ploughed two offroad vehicles through a crowd at an Urumqi market.