China sentences to death doctor convicted of killing eight children

Beijing - A court in south-eastern China's Fujian province on Thursday sentenced to death a former doctor convicted of killing eight primary-school children in a trial held 16 days after the murders.

Zheng Minsheng, 41, admitted intentionally killing the eight children and injuring five others on March 23 at the gate of the Nanping Experimental Primary School in Fujian's Nanping city, state media quoted a court statement as saying.

The Intermediate People's Court in Nanping convicted Zheng after a four-hour hearing, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The former community doctor told police the frenzied knife attack was motivated by his perceived failures in his career, family and relationships.

"I'm willing to shoulder responsibility for what I have done," the agency quoted him as telling the court.

Zheng said he had been "turned down by a girl and suffered unfair treatment from the girl's wealthy family," which prompted him to carry out the attack.

Prosecutors also said unmarried Zheng's failure in relations with women, his family and in his career had made his life "meaningless" to him.

He had no history of mental illness, the agency quoted police as saying.

The government's desire to appease public anger over serious crime could be behind the unusually rapid organization of Zheng's trial and sentencing.

Most cases take months to go to trial, but some high-profile cases involving murder and other violent crime are apparently fast-tracked by prosecutors and courts, which operate under the broad supervision of local Communist Party officials.

More than 50 reporters from "dozens of media organizations" attended Thursday's trial, Xinhua said.

In contrast, most trials are closed to Chinese and foreign media or only open to a handful of local reporters from state media.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/317644,china-sentences-to-death-doctor-convicted-of-killing-eight-children.html.