China executes mining tycoon for crimes

A Chinese mining tycoon linked to former security tsar Zhou Yongkang has been executed, according to Chinese media.  Liu Han, 48, was found guilty of 13 charges – including murder, organising casinos, running a mafia-style gang and illegally selling firearms – and sentenced to death in late May this year. 

According to the SCMP, he was executed on Monday morning together with his younger brother Liu Wei and three associates, Tang Xianbing, Zhang Donghua and Tian Xianwei, Xianning city intermediate court in Hubei province said. 

The court organised meetings between the criminals and their families prior to the executions, Xinhua reported. He spoke calmly to his family as they visited him  before his execution.

He told them to accept his fate, and not to seek redress for any injustice, according to a source close to the family. His final words quoted the adage attributed to Abraham Lincoln: “You can fool some of the people all the time, and all the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”.

Liu Han’s Hanlong Group – a conglomerate founded in 1997 with interests ranging from energy to real estate – was fined 300 million yuan (HK$377 million) for crimes including the use of fraudulent information to obtain bank loans.