Chinese Court Sentences Perpetrator of Murder of Japanese School Elementary Student to Death Penalty

Last September, a perpetrator who attacked a Japanese elementary school student with a bladed weapon while the student was on the way to school in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, southern China, was sentenced to death.

On the 24th, NHK reported that the local court, the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court, sentenced the 40-year-old Chinese male perpetrator to death on the same day.

According to the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the court ruled, "The crime was extremely heinous, committed cruelly to gain attention on the internet, and the perpetrator even called the media after the crime."

Flowers commemorating the victims are placed in front of the gate of the Japanese School in Shenzhen, China, where the incident occurred. Photo by NHK.

The Japanese elementary school student, who was 10 years old at the time, was stabbed by the 40-year-old man about 200 meters from the school gate while walking to school. The student was transported to the hospital but ultimately died. Coincidentally, the incident occurred on September 18 last year, the 93rd anniversary of the Manchurian Incident (9·18 Incident) when Japan launched its invasion of Manchuria in 1931, raising suspicions that it might have been a hate crime.

In response, the Japanese government demanded measures to ensure the safety of Japanese nationals in the area, and the incident became a diplomatic issue between the two countries.

Earlier, in June last year, a similar incident occurred at a Japanese school bus stop in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, where a local man in his 50s wielded a bladed weapon, killing a Chinese school bus attendant and injuring a Japanese mother and her child. This man was also sentenced to death on the 23rd of this month by the Suzhou Intermediate People's Court.