Suspect shot dead in Xinjiang

Police in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region rejected rumors on the Internet that a young man from Aksu prefecture was killed by police for running red traffic lights. Instead, the man was shot dead for refusing to stop at checkpoints and for assaulting officers, they said.

A man who spread the rumors online has been detained.

Abudulbasit Abulimit, from Yuerqin township of southern Xinjiang's Keping county, ran through two checkpoints on a motorcycle around 11:40 pm on April 12. The officers at the checkpoints fired warning shots but they were ignored by Abudulbasit, the police said in a statement released on Thursday. Abudulbasit then attacked the officers and attempted to take firearms from them, the police statement said.

After Abudulbasit was shot, he was taken to a hospital, where he died the following morning, it said.

Some foreign hostile forces twisted the facts and fabricated a story that the man was shot dead just for running red lights, according to the statement.

Some people have made up rumors and forwarded false information on the Internet, police said. One man from Urumqi, the capital of the region, was detained on Wednesday for spreading such rumors online. He was sentenced to 15 days in detention.

The police statement didn't say whether the motorcyclist's attack on the officers was terrorist-related.

Aksu has seen two terrorist attacks this year.

On Jan 24, a group of attackers threw explosive devices at a hair salon and a vegetable market in Xinhe county, killing one person and injuring two.

Police arrested three suspects, and later a suspicious vehicle exploded, killing two people inside, as police closed in on the two suspects. The regional government said after an investigation that the attack was premeditated.

On Feb 14, eight attackers were killed by police and three others by their own suicide devices during a terrorist attack in Wushi county.

The terrorists, riding on motorbikes and in cars, attacked a team of police on patrol. Two civilians and two police officers were injured.