(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-11-16 15:57

The family of the south China neurosurgeon who was shot dead by police on Tuesday are demanding the city's public security bureau retract its public statement on the incident, saying they refuse to believe the police version of events.

Liu Benbao, the brother of Yin Fangming, the dead doctor, said the family also wanted an impartial inquiry -- which was fully independent of the police -- into the shooting.

A statement from the Guangzhou municipal public security bureau said on Wednesday that the shooting occurred near the hospital in the Haizhu District at 4:55 a.m., when a police officer from the bureau's Haizhu branch stopped to speak to the driver of a car that appeared suspicious because the license plates at front and rear were covered with newspaper.

The driver refused to answer the officer's questions and forcibly grabbed the officer's police identification card. The driver allegedly put his car into reverse in an apparent attempt to hit the officer, and injured the officer's legs, the statement said.

The officer grabbed a door handle to stop the car, and he was dragged along the road for several meters. The police officer was forced to fire his pistol, and the driver was shot and injured.

The officer immediately called the emergency medical services and the driver was taken to Zhujiang Hospital, but he died after emergency treatment, according to the statement.

A spokeswoman of the bureau contacted by Xinhua didn't reveal how many shots the policeman fired.

Liu Benbao, Yin's younger brother who works as an accountant for a construction company in Hefei, said he arrived in Guangzhou with ten other family members.

Yin was the third oldest son of five children in eastern Anhui province and was later adopted by his father's uncle. He took the uncle's surname while his siblings kept the father's name of Liu.

Liu told Xinhua by phone, "We demand to know the truth, not one-sided information from the public security bureau.

"My brother's colleagues and leaders of the hospital have supported our requests and they also want to know the truth," he added.

The families have been denied access to the witness, who is helping the investigation in the city procuratorate office.

"Whatever the conflicts were, the police should not have fired the gun," Liu said.

Wang Yalin, a prominent lawyer in Anhui, who was approached by the family said, "Judging from the information released so far, in this case, the shooting has aroused suspicion of abuse of authority."

He demanded police allow full access to a key witness to the event and called for a fully independent inquiry.

Wang's allegation of "abuse of authority" was backed by other legal experts. The Legal Daily quoted Professor Yang Zhongmin, of the Beijing-based Chinese People's Public Security University, as saying, "As the statement reads, the doctor was neither a suspect in a major crime nor a wanted suspect. He just wanted to run away from the police and his action was not so dangerous as to threaten the life of the police."

Law Professor Yu Lingyun, of Tsinghua University, argued that according to rules, police are allowed to use weapons only when the situation threatens public security and an officer's life, and when warnings fail.

"According the statement, the car only hurt the policeman's leg, and the policeman had every chance to break away and pursue the case by legal means. The shooting appears illegal to me," Yu said.

The Beijing News reported Wu Heping, spokesman for the Ministry of Public Security, as saying, "For these kinds of problems, (we) believe the local police and supervision departments will pay close attention and handle it properly."

The report said the ministry would send staff to oversee the handling of the incident.

Wang Qinghua, a colleague of the dead man, said Yin had a 16-year-old daughter and remembered Yin as "good natured".