China vows severe punishment for station attackers

Armed policemen patrol on a square outside the Kunming Railway Station where more than 10 assailants slashed scores of people with knives and machetes on Saturday night in Kunming, in western China’s Yunnan province, Monday, March 3, 2014. AP File photo

BEIJING, China—The top judge overseeing China’s Communist Party-controlled courts pledged Monday to severely punish culprits in terror attacks such the knife slashing at a train station in Kunming that killed 29 people about a week ago.

In listing this year’s priorities, Zhou Qiang, president of the Supreme People’s Court, said that first among them was meting out heavy penalties for terrorism and crimes that endanger public order.

Zhou said the court would work to “maintain national security and social stability and increase the people’s sense of security.”

The court will work to “let people feel fairness and justice with every judicial case,” Zhou pledged.

Officials have said the March 1 attack in the southern city of Kunming was instigated by separatists from the far-west region of Xinjiang, home to the ethnic Uighur minority. Police fatally shot four of the suspects and have the other four in custody.

Zhou also said the court will actively participate in the anti-corruption campaign that has been the hallmark of President Xi Jinping’s administration, vowing to target both low and high-level officials.

The top judge also promised to find a systematic way to prevent and correct wrongful convictions, after a number of high-profile cases of miscarriage of justice sparked public anger last year.

The moves reflect Chinese leaders’ recognition that an increasingly prosperous public is demanding a more predictable and fair justice system, though party officials are unlikely to fully loosen their grasp over the courts, police and prosecutors.