BEIJING – China has sentenced a former education official and a former legal official in the northwestern region of Xinjiang to death with a two-year reprieve on charges including separatism and bribe taking.
Sattar Sawut and Shirzat Bawudun are the latest of many Xinjiang bureaucrats, almost all members of the Muslim Turkic Uyghur minority group, to be sentenced on national security charges in what China calls a campaign against “two-faced officials” who are seeking to undermine Chinese rule from within the system.
Such sentences are usually commuted to life in prison after two years with good behavior. Both men pleaded guilty and neither would file an appeal, said Wang Langtao, vice president of Xinjiang’s regional higher people’s