Fu, 46, who has been detained in Beijing, got the news from TV that his mother is not dead. "It is the will of Heaven. If I had choked her for a longer time, she would have died and would not endure the hardships," Fu said.

Fu killed his father and wife and badly injured his mother on November 18 in a residence building in Beijing's Xicheng District, and was caught by the police on the spot.

Fu, who began to practice Falun Gong in 1998, confessed to police that he chopped his father and wife to death and injured his mother with a kitchen knife at his parents' home after "realizing" that they "had to depart."

He said that a woman named Yang Cuiyun introduced Falun Gong to him when they met at a local shop and began to chat one day in early 1998. When the subject turned to Falun Gong, Fu showed an interest in learning more about it.

After meeting Yang, Fu said he read many books on Falun Gong in a short period of time. And every night for seven nights, he watched videos made by Falun Gong leader Li Hongzhi.

"Falun Gong helps me reach the other shore of space in terms of knowledge about universe. After seeing space covered with gold bricks, people will feel that this world is too dirty," said Fu.

Psychologically manipulated by Falun Gong, Fu said, "I have cultivated 'morality', and I will cultivate 'mercy'. In order to get 'mercy', I must first kill."

Yang, who stopped the practice of Falun Gong in 1999 and broke away from the cult, was shocked by Fu's murders.

Former Practitioners Scared

Some other former Falun Gong practitioners say if they had continued to practice Falun Gong, they too might have been involved in such a tragedy.

Wei Min, a former practitioner in Beijing, said that Falun Gong ignores the dignity of the individual and leads people to such deviant extremes that its practitioners are driven to commit suicide or murder.

Li Huiyun, a teacher of the Hebei Science and Technology University who has given up Falun Gong, said that when she was practicing Falun Gong in 1998, she had an impulse to kill her eight-year-old son so that she could help him get to heaven.

She said that if not for Falun Gong, Fu Yibin would not have killed his beloved father and wife.

Zhang Honglin, a researcher of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Research Institute, said Falun Gong uses a form of mind control similar to hypnotism to manipulate the will of its practitioners.

He said that Fu Yibin is both a murderer and a victim. But in fact, the real murderer is Li Hongzhi and the Falun Gong cult.

Falun Gong Cult to Be Eliminated

A commentator's article to be carried in Monday's People's Daily condemns Li Hongzhi as the root of the tragedy, saying that the Falun Gong cult has caused the deaths of more than 1,700 practitioners.

Although the cult has been banned in China, its leaders in foreign countries still use the Internet and other high technologies to control the followers to carry out destructive activities in China, it says.

The Falun Gong cult should be thoroughly eliminated, the articles says.

(People's Daily December 24, 2001)