A court in China has sentenced a 62-year-old man, Fan Weiqiu, to death for killing 35 people last month by driving into a crowd at a sports center in the southern city of Zhuhai. The attack was motivated by Fan’s anger over his divorce settlement.
Fan pleaded guilty to endangering public safety by dangerous means and was found with a knife, attempting to harm himself after the incident. This sentence is part of a recent trend of mass killings in China that has prompted Chinese leader Xi Jinping to order local governments to take steps to prevent future “extreme cases”.
Similar attacks on crowds have occurred before, but the recent spate and high number of victims have renewed focus on the issue. Authorities often censor reports and information about such incidents, releasing only basic details after a delay.
The attack’s aftermath saw police set up barricades at the sports center and public leave bouquets of flowers near the scene. Fan is the second person to receive a death sentence in quick succession for a similar crime, with a driver given a suspended sentence just weeks earlier.
Source: https://apnews.com/article/china-crowd-mass-killing-death-sentence-532cf8651cc13a036771b83da03f0e44