A Tiananmen Square protester who was jailed in China for two years following the pro-democracy movement was stabbed to death in his New York law office on Monday.
Li Jinjin, 66, was stabbed in the neck and body around 11:40 a.m. on Monday at his office in Flushing, the New York Daily News reported.
Police on Monday arrested Xiaoning Zhang, 25, who faces a murder charge, according to the outlet.
Li participated in the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy student protests against Chinese authoritarian rule.
In 1993, after he had been jailed for roughly two years, Li sought asylum in the U.S., where he worked as an immigration lawyer and advocated for the people involved in the Tiananmen movement, according to the Daily News.
Zhang last week allegedly made a disruptive scene in Li's office, according to the victim's friends who spoke to the newspaper.
Chuang Chuang Chen, the CEO of the China Democracy Party, told the newspaper Zhang came to the U.S. on a student visa but wanted asylum because she had been raped by police in Beijing and sent to a mental health facility.
She had requested Li take her case, which he refused. Li's friends told the Daily News it may have been because she was mentally unstable.
“I can’t believe it. She not only destroyed his life, but the hope of our community,” Li's friend Wei Zhu told the publication. “He wanted to realize democracy in China. He will never realize that dream.”