Killer of Japanese schoolboy in China’s Shenzhen executed
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The boy died a day after being stabbed on his way to the Japanese school in Shenzhen.
PHOTO: ST FILE
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TOKYO – A Chinese man convicted of fatally stabbing a 10-year-old Japanese schoolboy in Shenzhen, southern China, in September 2024, has been executed, a diplomatic source said on April 21.
Zhong Changchun was sentenced to death in January for killing the boy – the son of a Japanese father and a Chinese mother – near a Japanese school in the southern city. He did not appeal against the sentence.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry informed the Japanese Embassy in Beijing on April 21 that the man had been executed, according to the source.
The man from Jiangxi province told a Jan 24 court hearing that he hoped to speak with the victim’s family, and the Japanese Embassy in China, but he did not say he had specifically targeted Japanese nationals, said Mr Kenji Kanasugi, ambassador to China.
Zhong attacked the boy after buying a knife to “draw online attention” through the assault, the envoy quoted the court ruling as saying. The boy died the following day after being stabbed on his way to the Japanese school in Shenzhen.
The stabbing occurred on the 93rd anniversary of the Japanese bombing of a railroad track near Shenyang, which marked the beginning of the Manchurian Incident that led to Japan’s invasion of north-eastern China.
Last week, Japanese government officials said a Chinese man convicted of killing a Chinese woman and injuring two Japanese nationals in a knife attack in June 2024 at a Japanese school bus stop in Suzhou near Shanghai had been executed. KYODO NEWS
