China executes man who killed 35 in car rampage

China on Monday executed a man who killed 35 people in a car rampage in the southern city of Zhuhai in November, in the country’s deadliest mass attack in years.

On November 11, Fan Weiqiu, 62, deliberately drove a small SUV through crowds of people exercising outside a sports complex, also injuring 45 in China’s worst such crime since 2014.

He was sentenced to death last month, with a court saying his motives “were extremely vile, (and) the nature of the crime extremely egregious”.

State broadcaster CCTV said Monday a Zhuhai court “executed Fan Weiqiu in accordance with the execution order issued by the Supreme People’s Court”.

The municipal public prosecutor “sent personnel to supervise (the execution) in accordance with the law”, CCTV reported.

Fan’s attack sparked widespread public shock and soul-searching in China about the state of society.

He was detained at the scene with self-inflicted knife wounds and fell into a coma, police said at the time.

At his trial last month, Fan pleaded guilty in front of some of the victims’ families, officials and members of the public, state media said.

The court found he “decided to vent his anger” over “a broken marriage, personal frustrations, and dissatisfaction with the division of property after divorce”.

It concluded that the methods he used were “particularly cruel, and the consequences particularly severe, posing significant harm to society”.

Second execution

Violent crime is generally rarer in China than many Western countries, but the country saw a string of mass casualty events last year.

Stabbings and car attacks challenged the ruling Communist Party’s reputation for strict public security and crime prevention.

They also carried a shock factor that led some to question perceived social ills such as frustration with a slowing economy, high unemployment and diminishing social mobility.

CCTV reported Monday that a separate court in eastern Jiangsu province had carried out the death penalty on a man who killed eight people and wounded 17 in a mass stabbing in November.

Xu Jiajin, a 21-year-old former student who attacked a vocational school in the city of Wuxi, was executed “in accordance with the law”, CCTV reported.

He too had been sentenced to death in December, with the court concluding that his crime was “extraordinarily serious”, CCTV said.

Xu was permitted to “meet with his close relatives” before his execution, the broadcaster added.

China classifies death penalty statistics as a state secret, but rights groups including Amnesty believe the country executes thousands every year.