Ablimit Nurdun from Urumqi, Xinjiang, China had a happy life, but now he and his wife serve time in prison. It all changed when he and his family went on a trip to Turkey five years ago.
“A warmhearted man approached me and invited me to his house,” Ablimit said. “He said his name was Satpulla Haji, and he told me a lot about a good place where food and accommodation are taken care of and I will be well paid,” Ablimit recalled.
That was when the nightmare began. Soon, Ablimit discovered the kind man was a person in charge of recruiting members for the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), the terrorist group responsible for several attacks in China’s Xinjiang.
Speaking to CCTV from prison, Ablimit felt regretful for himself, his wife and children. “We used to have a comfortable life. I was a translator and was dealing in second-hand motor vehicles in Urumqi.” But now those days have become distant memories.
Xinjiang police did not tell us how and when Ablimit and his wife were arrested, nor where they had been stationed for training. Since the beginning of the year, the Chinese government has stepped in to crack down on cross-border terrorism.
Many of those arrested are Uyghurs from Xinjiang who travelled to Turkey to join wars in Syria and Iraq.
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