Man murdered in front of wife

By Wang Huazhong in Beijing and Ma Wei in Chongqing (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-06-04 11:37

A businessman was brutally murdered in front of his wife in an attack believed to be linked to the couple's credit business in Chongqing municipality.

The man, surnamed Li, aged in his 40s, was shot twice in the chest at point-blank range as he got out of his black BMW at the front gate of his Aidingbao residence in Jiangbei district at 2:10 am Wednesday.

Li's distraught wife saw the face of the young male gunman and attempted to chase him down the street. She returned to help her husband, who was driven by taxi to hospital where he later died.

"His wife clearly saw the murder's face and attempted to chase him, but she later had to return and stay with Li and took him to hospital," police said.

Police sources said the murder could be linked to the couple's credit business.

Li's wife said her husband had been acting strangely in the weeks leading up to the attack.

"He was behaving abnormally recently, and we drove in several circles cautiously checking the area before pulling over the car," she said.

A local property owner said he heard what sounded like firecrackers before the Li's wife began screaming over the body of her dying husband.

"I saw a girl screaming 'laogong, (husband) laogong'. A man was then carried into a taxi, leaving a pool of blood on the ground," the property owner told cqnews.com.

A security guard, surnamed Wang, who works in the residential compound, witnessed the shooting and was interviewed by police yesterday, local media reported. Police have launched an investigation into the murder but say it is not connected to a March 19 shooting in which a garrison sentry, affiliated to a Chongqing-based Army unit, was killed and had his submachine gun stolen.

Li's murder is the latest incidence of gun-related violence in China, where it is illegal for civilians to own firearms.

Just two weeks ago, a man was shot in head by a homemade gun during a shootout between two rival gangs on Changshou Road in downtown Shanghai.

In February, the Ministry of Public Security launched a crackdown on gun crime in five of China's west and southwest provinces, namely Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan, Tibet and Gansu. Between February and April, police seized 1,356 unlawfully possessed guns, 33,863 bullets and explosives weighing more than 12,000 kg.