China Exclusive: "Missing" Hong Kong bookseller turns himself in to police

Gui Minhai, a Hong Kong bookseller hyped as "missing" by media overseas, had already turned himself in to police in the Chinese mainland in October 2015, after fleeing more than ten years ago while still in probation for convicted drunk driving.

"Turning myself in is a voluntary choice of my own, and has nothing to do with anybody else," Gui, a Swedish national and owner of Causeway Bay Books in Hong Kong, told Xinhua at a detention place on Wednesday.

"This is my due responsibility. I do not want anyone or any institution to be involved or get in the way of my returning, nor do I want any malicious media hype.

"Although I now hold the Swedish citizenship, deep down I still think of myself as a Chinese. My roots are in China. I hope the Swedish authorities would respect my personal choices, my rights and my privacy, and allow myself to deal with my own issues," he said.

Police authorities said Gui was also linked to other crimes and is cooperating with investigators in the ongoing probe, without giving any further details.

"I am taking my legal responsibilities, and am willing to accept any punishment," he said.

Gui, 51, was convicted of drunk driving in August 2004 and sentenced to two years in prison with a two-year reprieve after he struck and killed a female college student in her early twenties on the night of Dec. 8, 2003.

Tests showed Gui was driving with 114 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood, well above the legal limit of drunk driving. Relatives of the deceased had voiced objection to Gui's sentences and demanded harsher punishment.

Worried that he would eventually end up in jail, Gui fled the country three months later and had been on the run since, up until October 2015, about nine years after Chinese police launched an online manhunt for him in August 2006.

"I was scared and afraid of jail terms (back in 2006). And with that (drunk driving) incident, I knew there was no future for me in the country. So I thought I'd better get going," Gui recalled.

In the following years, he had lived with an increasing "sense of guilt and insecurity", despite growing fortunes.

"There is no home for me...," Gui told Xinhua. "I was tortured, psychologically. I had nightmares and suffered from hypertension and heart diseases. It is unbearable."

His father's death in June 2015 was the last straw.

"I could not even go to my father's funeral," Gui went on. "My mother is also over 80 years old and I miss her... So I had been thinking about going back to my country and turning myself in, so that I could see my mother again while she's still alive."

"I did not have the courage to do this earlier. Now I think is the time to do this," he said, adding that he wishes to extend his sincerest apologies to the relatives of the victim of his crime. Endi