China Executes Man For Killing 35 In Deadly Car Rampage

China on Monday executed a man who killed 35 people in a car rampage in the southern city of Zhuhai in November, state media said.

A court in the city “executed Fan Weiqiu in accordance with the execution order issued by the Supreme People’s Court”, state broadcaster CCTV said.

On November 11, 62-year-old Fan Weiqiu deliberately drove a small SUV through crowds of people exercising outside a sports complex.

He killed 35 and wounded 43, state media reported at the time, in China’s deadliest attack since 2014.

Fan was detained at the scene with self-inflicted knife wounds and fell into a coma, police said at the time.

He was sentenced to death last month, with a court saying his motives “were extremely vile, the nature of the crime extremely egregious, the methods particularly cruel, and the consequences particularly severe, posing significant harm to society”.

CCTV said Monday that Zhuhai’s public prosecutor “sent personnel to supervise the execution in accordance with the law.”

Fan’s attack sparked widespread public shock and soul-searching in China about the state of society.

At his trial last month, Fan pleaded guilty in front of some of the victims’ families, officials and members of the public.

The court found that he “decided to vent his anger” over “a broken marriage, personal frustrations and dissatisfaction with the division of property after divorce.”

It concluded that his methods were “particularly cruel, and the consequences particularly severe, posing significant harm to society”.