'Revenge' motive for China blasts

Jin Ruchao reportedly confessed to the bombings

The man who reportedly confessed to killing 108 people in bomb attacks in China was motivated by a desire for personal revenge, state media have said.

The reports are the first official indication of a motive for the bombings - China's most serious crime of recent years.

The main suspect in the case, Jin Ruchao, is said to have confessed to the crimes after being arrested on Friday.

The case of the huge explosion... which shocked the whole nation... has been solved

Xinhua news agency

Mr Jin also admitted to the murder of his girlfriend a week earlier, police told state media.

State media said on Sunday that buildings damaged or destroyed in the attacks were home to Mr Jin's stepmother, ex-wife and former neighbours against whom he bore grudges.

It is not known whether any of these people was indeed killed in the bombings.

State television showed police bundling a smiling Mr Jin into a black car in Beihai, the coastal town in south-western Guanxi province where he was found earlier on Friday.

"During questioning, he confessed in writing that he was responsible for the explosions," a police official told Agence France Presse news agency.

Doubts

Four blasts rocked the city last Friday

The blasts ripped through four blocks of flats, mainly housing cotton mill workers, in the industrial northern city of Shijiazhuang last week.

The BBC Beijing correspondent says few believe Mr Jin could have carried out the well-planned attacks alone.

There has been speculation that the blasts could be the work of disgruntled factory workers, who have carried out bombings in the past.

More than one million textile workers have lost their jobs in recent years.

Huge manhunt

Mr Jin's arrest in Beihai, a beach resort bordering Vietnam notorious for smuggling, follows the biggest police manhunt in China for nearly 20 years.

Security has been stepped up following the blasts

Warrants for his arrest had been posted in public places and a 100,000 yuan ($12,000) reward issued for his arrest.

Police said they had chased the fugitive Mr Jin on a motorbike through the night.

But his arrest in Beihai - which is about 2,000km (1,200 miles) from Shijiazhuang - has cast some doubt on whether he was responsible for the bombings.

The Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy says Mr Jin is being made a scapegoat.

It quoted police services saying Mr Jin had no knowledge about explosives.

Other leads

Police have admitted that more than one person could be involved in the attacks which flattened one large residential block and damaged another three.

There was shock as people surveyed the damage

Mr Jin was reportedly a worker at the No 3 Cotton Mill, until 1983 when he was dismissed for "hooliganism".

But he had kept a room in the factory's dormitory block, the building that completely collapsed.

Reports said his father and stepmother also lived there.

His ex-wife and her husband were said to live in another of the targets and her parents at a third.

Mr Jin has reportedly served a 10-year jail sentence for rape.