A CHINESE shop owner knocked two customers to the ground with kung-fu kicks after he mistook them for thieves in Bulawayo.

Wang Xu, who owns a grocer, was spared jail time by a Bulawayo magistrate on Monday after agreeing to pay the medical costs of his victims.

Xu, 22, pleaded guilty to assault before provincial magistrate Nokhululeko Mkonto.

In his favour, the magistrate found that Xu was trying to protect his customers after a woman said her phone had been stolen inside the retail shop.

Mkhonto slapped him with a ten month prison sentence but conditionally suspended six months for five years. She also suspended four months on condition he repays the victims US$50 each in medical costs.

The court heard Kujinga Tawedzera and Lovejoy Musiiwa entered Xu’s shop just after 2PM on March 6 this month.

Wrongly judging the pair were thieves, Xu, an enthusiast of the Chinese martial art of kung fu, armed himself with a broom and attacked the pair who later needed hospital treatment. Musiiwa was treated for a swollen eye while Tawedzera suffered a cut to the back of his head.

Passing sentence, the magistrate told Xu: “Assault usually leads to permanent disability in some cases, not to omit murder or culpable homicide.

“You assaulted two people and although you thought they were thieves, you took the law into your own hands, instead of having them arrested by the police.”