Cui Dezhen, a Falun Gong practitioner from east China's Shandong Province, was not beaten to death as asserted by the Falun Gong headquarters abroad, but killed accidentally by an electric shock while spreading
propaganda materials on the cult.
 
Sources with local police said Cui got hit by an electric shock when he was posting illegal Falun Gong materials on a high-tension wire pole in his home village while he was following the directions from the Falun Gong headquarters abroad.
 
Cui, a farmer born in September 1970 in Lushang Village in Laixi City, Shandong, became a Falun Gong practitioner in the spring of 1999 and continued practicing even after the Chinese government declared Falun Gong as a cult and banned it according
to law in July 1999.
 
Cui, together with Wang Ruixiang, Zhang Yuzhen and Cui Dexiu, all Falun Gong followers, spent about three hours listening to Falun Gong cassette tapes at Cui's home before they went out to spread Falun Gong materials separately around 21:00 December 28, 2001.
 
At about 22:00 that day, local police received a call from Cui's elder brother Cui Dedong, saying that the younger Cui was found lying unconsciously under a high-tension wire pole in the village and was sent to the Laixi No.2 People's Hospital.
 
When police arrived at the hospital, Cui was dead already.

  Forensic experts found burns over Cui's hands and on the back of his right knee.
 
Following further investigation, police confirmed that Cui died after being hit by an electric shock and falling from a high pole.
 
While inquiring Cui's wife Qin Lili and other family members about the accident that evening, police officers found that Qin was very sad and in an unstable mood.
 
They then let her take a rest at the Shuiji Police Station, accompanied by Cui's younger brother Desheng and Dedong's wife. The three left the police station the following morning.

 Desheng said that it was him and Dedong that took their brother to the hospital from the scene by tricycle and that Dedong called the police soon after Dezhen's death in the hospital.

 "That's what happened," Desheng said. "And I've cooperated with the police in dealing with the accident."
 
Learning the assertion by the Falun Gong headquarters abroad on Cui's death, Wang Ruixiang was very angry.

 "I took part in the activities on December 28 and know all about the truth," Wang said. "What the Falun Gong headquarters said is totally different from the fact I know."
 
Wang said that she and her husband rushed to the hospital and then Cui's home to see what was going on immediately after receiving a call from Cui Dexiu around 23:00 that day about Dezhen being hit by an electric shock.
 
"What a lie the Falun Gong headquarters has told! It's really ridiculous," Wang said.  

March 25 (Xinhua)