Surgeon convicted for plotting attacks

BEIJING - Five people, including a surgeon, were sentenced to criminal detentions from 45 days to five and a half months on Sunday after being convicted of "creating disturbance and undermining the social order" by attacking Fang Zhouzi, a popular writer known as a "science cop", and Fang Xuanchang, a reporter from the Beijing-based Caijing Magazine.

The court, in Beijing's Shijingshan district, announced on Sunday afternoon that Xiao Chuanguo, 54, director of surgery at a hospital in Wuhan in Central China's Hubei province, and his relative Dai Jianxiang have been sentenced to criminal detention of five and a half months for plotting the attacks after the two Fangs had expressed doubts about Xiao's academic achievements.

The other three defendants, hired to attack Fang Zhouzi and Fang Xuanchang, were also sentenced to criminal detentions - Xu Lichun for four months, Long Guangxing three months and Kang Yongjun one and a half months.