Zeng Liangquan, owner of the asylum that allegedly sold mentally ill workers to Xinjiang, said he had no idea of the mistreatment those workers suffered.

A mentally ill worker rests in a room at the Jiaersi Green Construction Material Chemical Factory in Toksun county, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. [Photo/Xinjiang Metropolis News]

"I was shocked and feel very angry (when I heard about the illegal employment in Xinjiang)," Zeng said during an interview with Xinhua.

Visit to the asylum

The asylum is in Shanxing village, three kilometers from the seat of Quxian County, Sichuan Province.

In the 200-square-meter yard, slogans like "The enterprise of helping the disabled is humane enterprise, also lofty enterprise", "One cannot be defeated if he has confidence", "Help the disabled and enjoy the happy life" can be seen on the walls of a two-storey building.

"Zeng is not a bad person, and this base has been run more than ten years. But we didn't know what he had done inside. Who knew that he did something illegal?" said an onlooker, a farmer who declined to be named.

Zeng, 46, was junior school educated, short and swarthy. He was detained by police on Monday.

Zeng said he began to take in beggars and physically or mentally disabled people in 1993, intending to make them raise pigs and do farm work for him as he would "train and guide" them to become self-reliant.

"The 'shelter' was built in 1996, and I changed the name to 'The disabled self-reliance group' in 1998. "I have invested more than 600,000 yuan (90,000 U.S. dollars) so far," said Zeng.

He said he was "shocked" and "very angry" when he heard about the slavery scandal in Xinjiang.

"I sent four members of the self-reliance group to Xinjiang where they could be paid 280 yuan (42 U.S. dollars) every month," he said.

According to Zeng, the work contract stipulated that the boss could not enslave workers, and Li Xinglin, owner of the factory in Xinjiang, was his fellow-townsman.

"I went to Xinjiang last year. Workers there lived in a good condition and they ate meat. But I didn' t know Li secretly treated workers so bad," Zeng said.

Zeng also disclosed that he has adopted about 200 disabled people over the years. Some of them had been sent to Xinjiang and Beijing. More than 40 people are doing basic work like cleaning in Beijing.

"We gained about one million yuan (150,000 U.S. dollars) in total, but I just kept the money for them," Zeng said, adding that because they were mentally ill people, it's hard for them to keep money. He gives them money at the end of the year according to their work days, 18 to 20 yuan per day, and workers sign for or use their fingerprints when they get paid.