July 5 riot "far beyond ordinary violent matter"

• Source: Xinhua
• [08:55 July 19 2009]
• Comments

WEAPONS PREPARED BEFOREHAND, DIVISION OF TASKS CLEAR

According to the security department, these misdoers were mostly from outside Urumqi, and several leaders among them wore similar clothes.

The weapons used during the riot were mostly stones, bricks, wood and iron clubs, as well as some knives and guns. Some businessmen in the city told reporters that knives became hot selling products two or three days before the unrest.

The department said that two tickets were found in a captured suspect. One was a used ticket from south Xinjiang to Urumqi on July 4, the other was a return ticket on July 6.

Information revealed by a principal from a company at the Tianchi Road showed that, at about 8:40 p.m., a woman in a black robe ran to a man with about 30 thugs following. The man gave her several clubs and she gave out the clubs to the followers.

The principal said the stones and bricks used by these people were not from the Tianchi Road as the bricks on the road were not damaged. "There were also some stones which looked like to be from some building sites. It was like they had prepared them beforehand."

According to witnesses, the misdoers' wood clubs were actually used to support the small trees along the Tianchi road. Each one of them was about 1.2 meters long, with a diameter of 5 to 10 cm.

Local residents told reporters that about 60 small trees were planted along the road just in June. They thought the thugs chose here because of the "ready-made" weapons. Also, the residents said there were many alleys and lanes along the road, making it hard to chase the thugs.

Witnesses from other places also claimed that the stones used during the riot were never seen in the city.

Businessmen from the area of the city's woman-children health care center told reporters that they saw people dropped stones from upstairs on passersby and cars along the road. "The stones must be carried upstairs beforehand... How come there were so many stones in the buildings?" One of them said.

Many witnesses' accounts coincide with the records of monitor cameras in which young women repeatedly appeared in black, white or brown robes and black hoods and young men in blue T-shirts.