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China detains chief suspect in steel exec's death

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-10-18 15:22

CHANGCHUN: Local police has detained the chief suspect who was in connection with the death of a steel factory manager in a workers' protest in July in northeast China's Jilin Province.

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According to police, the suspect named Ji Yigang, 50, was a worker in the Tonghua Iron and Steel Co. Ltd. He was captured by police on Friday and has confessed the offense.

Previously, five other suspects in the case have surrendered themselves to police.

Police did not disclose the whole account of the case.

In the protest stirred up by a merger plan, the manager Chen Guojun, who was dispatched by the Beijing-based Jianlong Heavy Machinery Group to conduct the merger plan to take a controlling share in the Tonghua factory, was beaten to death. Some protesting workers blocked the roads in the factory to prevent the police and ambulances from reaching the manager, according to government investigation.

Police found the suspect Ji had criminal records. He was sentenced to three years' education through labor for theft in 1978, and imprisoned for robbery for seven years by the People's Court in Tonghua in 1982.