BEIJING: China on Monday (Jan 20) 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 Nov 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 on 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”.
Source: CNA
