Seventeen people were charged on Tuesday with smuggling arms from Pakistan into Xinjiang and Qinghai. The trial is taking place in a court in northwestern China's Qinghai Province.

The case involves more than 900 guns and over 1,500 accessories, making it one of the largest arms smuggling cases the country has seen, Xinhua News Agency reported.

The alleged ringleader Ma Zeying, and Li Zhi purchased guns and accessories in Pakistan between 1995 to 2004 and sold them in Kashgar of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and in Xining, capital of Qinghai Province.

The suspects, residents from the two regions, with the youngest aged 29 and the oldest 56, allegedly formed a gun smuggling ring.

They concealed the weapons in the lining of suitcases, or hid separate parts of the guns in fruit crates.

The public security bureaux in the two regions started investigations in August 2004.

In January and March 2005, the Haidong Prefecture People's Procurator of Qinghai Province indicted the suspects at the Haidong Intermediate People's Court for weapons smuggling, trading and concealing.

Some defendants face the death penalty if convicted, Chao Lanjun from the Haidong Intermediate People's Court said.

The trial will last until Saturday and sentence is expected in two weeks.

There has been a rise in illegal weapons manufacturing and trading in recent years. Many of the guns used in murders in Qinghai Province were produced in the Hualong Hui Autonomous County, local police sources were quoted by Xinhua as saying.

A former judge Li Tongwen from Hebei Province was arrested in June in Beijing for selling guns and bullets made in Hualong on the Internet.

Hualong, a poverty-stricken region, has been a major illegal guns manufacturing area since the 1990s. Most manufacturing outfits are family-run businesses conducted in out-of-the-way caves and tunnels. 

The cost of making a gun is less than 100 yuan (US$12.3) but it can sell for 10,000 yuan (US$1,233) on the black market.

Qinghai police are working to crackdown on illegal arms manufacturing in Qinghai. In the last three months, 46 gun-trafficking suspects have been arrested, and a total of 180 guns, 2875 bullets, 2013 accessories and 1100 weapons-manufacturing tools seized.

(China Daily August 25, 2005)