URUMQI, China, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- Chinese officials say 21 people charged with murder, arson and robbery will be the first to stand trial for riots in the Uighur Autonomous Region.
Officials say 197 people were killed and 1,600 injured on July 5 in the city of Urumqi. Hundreds of people were detained.
Prosecutors have brought formal charges against 108 people.
Liu Bo, the chief prosecutor in the city, told Xinhua, the official government news agency, police have been trying to build cases against the accused that will hold up.
"It's a time-consuming task for the police force due to the number of people and the amount of evidence involved," Liu said. "That's why we have only instituted public prosecutions against 21 suspects so far."
Most Uighurs are Muslim and are ethnically distinct from Han Chinese. The Chinese government claims that Uighur nationalists are Islamist terrorists.
The government accuses the suspects facing the most serious charges of crimes that include setting a food distribution center on fire, causing five deaths and beating others to death in the street.
