Two men sentenced to death were executed in China on Monday. The execution was carried out on a man who drove a car into a crowd and killed 35 people, and another who killed eight people with a knife.
State television CCTV reported that a court in Zhuhai “executed Fan Weiqiu in accordance with the verdict issued by the Supreme People's Court.” The man was sentenced to death at the end of December. The court ruled that the perpetrator's motives “were exceptionally despicable and the nature of the crime was exceptionally egregious.”
On November 11 last year, 62-year-old Fan, driving a car, he drove into a group of people exercising and walking on the treadmill and square at the sports center in Zhuhai. According to official data provided by the authorities, he killed 35 people and injured 43.
The perpetrator fled the scene, but was quickly arrested. The police said in a statement that the motive for his actions was “dissatisfaction with the division of property after divorce.” At the time of his arrest, he was “sitting in the car, injuring himself with a knife.”
In turn, in the city of Wuxi in Jiangsu province in eastern China, an execution was carried out 21-year-old Xu Jiajin, who on November 16 last year attacked random people he met on the campus of the Wuxi Institute of Art and Technology with a knife. Eight people were killed and 17 injured.
When issuing the death sentence on December 17, the court found that “the circumstances of the crime were particularly bad and the consequences of the crime were particularly serious,” as reported by the website of Chinese radio CNR. The attack was said to have been caused by the perpetrator's failure to pass his exams at the university and dissatisfaction with his salary during his internship there.
“Revenge on society” in China
IN China In recent years, desperate acts, collectively known as “revenge on society”, have been relatively frequent. These include knife attacks in educational institutions and offices, as well as deliberate ramming of pedestrians. According to experts, the causes of these events are different – from dissatisfaction with personal life to the desire to take revenge for officials' decisions.
Main photo source: PAP/EPA – Alex Plavlevski