A Chinese anti-corruption official, who was found hanged in her office building last month, may have left a will in which she urged her family to leave the country, according to a now-censored report by Beijing News.
The handwritten note was found in the office of Duan Shumei, a party discipline inspector in the port city of Tianjin, where powerful chemical explosions last August flattened an industrial zone, leaving 173 dead.
“Kid, you have to be strong, mum paid a lot for this family, it’s all a set-up by them… Leave China with your dad,” the note read.
“They killed without blinking,” the letter said, as Duan pointed to at least two people, whose names were blurred in the report, apparently connected with her mother and brother’s recent suspicious deaths.
The Beijing News report was published on Sunday but deleted hours later.
On the same day, Tianjin police announced that they had concluded Duan killed herself. She was found lying on the staircase of her office building, her neck tied to the handrail with a rope on December 31, Beijing News said.
In the suspected will, which appears to be incomplete, Duan said she was going to fight her enemies to death. “I am not crazy”, the note said.
Authorities have not confirmed whether Duan wrote the note.
The city of Tianjin made headlines around the world last year when thousands of tonnes of chemicals exploded at a logistics centre, reducing the industrial area and nearby residential blocks to a war zone. Media investigations showed the company which stored the chemicals was violating safety rules in its operation.
More than two dozen company executives and government officials have since been arrested although the official investigation report has yet to be released. One official jumped to his death weeks after the disaster. It is unclear whether Duan’s death is related to the explosions.
