Police in Yunnan province yesterday admitted a man they said had triggered a bombing - and who local officials had painted as an extremist and a sociopath - was not to blame for the deadly blast, and issued an apology, Xinhua reported.
It said two men with grievances over land grabs had been arrested for masterminding the blast in Qiaojia county.
The announcements cast county officials in an extremely negative light. Three days after the blast in Baihetan township, local and state media quoted police chief Yang Chaobang as saying the bombing, at an office handling relocations, had nothing to do with land grabs. Yang also said he would stake his career on the man local officials blamed for the blast, Zhao Dengyong , being a suicide bomber.
Friends and relatives of Zhao, 26, had insisted since the blast in May that he was innocent. And the public was quick to call the official version of events into question, saying Zhao had been framed.
Now police in the city of Zhaotong , which oversees the county, say Zhao was an innocent victim of the May 10 explosion, which left him and three others dead and 16 people injured. New findings show he was tricked into carrying the bomb.
'We offer our sincere apology for releasing careless and inaccurate findings that had a negative impact on the public, Zhao Dengyong and his family,' police said.