Government prosecutors marshalled 210 pieces of evidence against prominent Uighur scholar Ilham Tohti before a court sentenced him to life in prison on charges of promoting separatism in his writings and lecture, Chinese state media has reported.
The official Xinhua News Agency yesterday released a raft of details from the prosecutors' case against Ilham Tohti, who was known as a mainstream mediator between the Uighur minority group and the ruling Han Chinese.
The harsh sentence handed down Tuesday prompted international condemnation, including a call for his release from US President Barack Obama.
Xinhua said the evidence against Ilham Tohti included video of one of his lectures where he said, "Does Xinjiang belong to the Hans? No, it first belonged to the Uighurs and it first belonged to the people of Central Asia."
The report also quoted the scholar as telling his students "I am not Chinese because I am a Uighur. My pride is that of greater Turkestan."
Xinhua reported that prosecutors also said the scholar publicized a fake opinion poll showing 12 per cent of Uighurs supported separating from China and that his students had testified that he had forced separatist teachings on them.
Defense lawyer Li Fangping responded that his client had only referenced someone else's poll and hadn't uttered the words attributed to him about not being Chinese.
