Billionaire sentenced to death for murder
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-01-14 00:13

A Chinese billionaire was sentenced to death for hiring his brother and cousins to murder his business partner in 2003, the Beijing News reported here Friday.

Zhuo Ma, wife of Yuan Baojing, holds a magazine with Yuan's photo on the cover.

Yuan Baojing, former president of Beijing-based Jianhao Group, together with his brother, Yuan Baoqi, and Yuan Baoshen, one of his cousins, were sentenced to death Thursday by the intermediate court of Liaoyang, a city in northeast China's Loaning province.

Another of Yuan's cousins, Yuan Baofu, was sentenced to death with two-year reprieve.

After the verdict was announced, the four defendants all said they will lodge an appeal.

Yuan Baojing, a resident of Liaoyang, earned his first 2 million yuan (241,545 US dollars) half year after registering his Jianhao Group in Beijing 1992. Later, he began making money through stocks. In 1994, he annexed 60-plus companies and in 1996 his assets has exceeded 3 billion yuan (362 million US dollars).

In the fall of 1996, Yuan Baojing and Yuan Baoqi have a meeting with their accessory Wang Xing and talked about hiring someone to kill Liu Han. Yuan said the man had caused his company a 90 million yuan (10.86 million US dollars) loss when trading futures in southwest China's Sichuan province, according to the court's investigation.

Yuan Baojing gave 160,000 yuan (19,300 US dollars) to Wang Xing via Yuan Baoqi. Yuan Baoqi asked Wang to hire the hit man Li Haiyang, to shot Liu Han. Liu narrowly escaped, the court said.

Beginning in 1997, Wang Xing began threatening to report Yuan involvement, after Yuan refused to lend him money, according to investigation.

In early 2001, Yuan Baojing and Yuan Baoqi decided to kill Wang. Yuan Baojing offered his brother 300,000 yuan (36,231 US dollars) to perform the murder. Wang was seriously injured but did not die as planned in November 2001.

Then Wang continued to threaten Yuans and was shot to death in October 2003 by Yuan Baoshen who got another 180,000 yuan (14,586 US dollars), the court revealed.

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