Witness to robbery stole elsewhere
( 2003-09-30 13:02) (China Daily)
An "innocent" bystander who
was mistakenly arrested by police at the scene of a street theft in Chengdu did
turn out to be a criminal, but he committed a different and much more serious
crime, reports Huaxi Metro News.
At about 9:30 am, patrolling police heard a woman cry out that her earrings
had been stolen. Upon seeing a man dash past them, the officers ran after him
and eventually caught the thief.
Just then, another man who witnessed the arrest ran off. Police thought he
must be the robber's partner and chased him down as well.
"I don't know him, I was just stopping to see what was wrong," protested the
trembling second man.
The first thief confessed to stealing the woman's earrings. But although he
was innocent of this particular crime, a check of the online database revealed
that the second man, Chen Dejun, was a fugitive involved in a 150,000-yuan
(US$18,000) robbery in 1998.
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