Court upholds death sentence for kindergarten attacker
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A Chinese court Wednesday upheld a death sentence against a man who attacked 29 children and three teachers at an east China kindergarten last month.
The Intermediate People's Court of Taizhou City, in Jiangsu Province, affirmed the first-instance sentence handed down on May 16 in Taizhou, which found Xu Yuyuan guilty of "intentional homicide."
Xu is expected to be executed soon.
Xu had admitted to the court his motive was to vent his rage against society after losing money in gambling and business, while suffering other setbacks in his personal life. But he appealed the "homicide" verdict, saying the punishment was too severe as he killed no one in the attack.
"Xu has finally come to terms with it after Wednesday's court ruling. After all, he had committed such a brutal attack," said Jin Xiaojun, a police officer in charge of the investigation.
Xu, unemployed, was the second man to receive a death sentence after five separate attacks on children across the country in less than two months.
Twenty-nine children and three adults were injured when Xu attacked them with a meat cleaver, at Zhongxin Kindergarten, in Taixing city, on April 29.
Attacks on children over the last two months in China have left 17 dead and scores injured. In the most recent atrocity, a 48-year-old man killed seven children and two women with a meat cleaver at a kindergarten in northwest China's Shaanxi Province on May 12. The man committed suicide after the attack.
In another case, Zheng Minsheng, 42, murdered eight children outside their primary school in east China's Fujian Province in March. He was executed on April 28.
The suspect in the school attack in Weifang, Shandong Province also killed himself, and the suspect in the case in Leizhou, Guangdong Province, has yet to stand trial.
Local authorities have been ordered to beef up security at school compounds and nearby residential communities.
In Fujian, all 16,448 kindergartens and primary and high schools have been equipped with almost 22,000 security guards and more than 35,600 defensive weapons such as rubber batons and bottled pepper spray.
In Shandong, police in the port city of Qingdao began to teach students and staff in a children's welfare house basic self-defense skills on Tuesday.
In addition, police and student escort teams will be established in 12 schools and 22 kindergartens in the city with the help of Qingdao's border security forces, said Zhang Xiuzhen, a frontier defense officer.
State Councilor and Minister of Public Security Meng Jianzhu has ordered police forces to cooperate with education authorities to more rigorously search for security risks around kindergartens and schools.
He also has called for improved psychological counseling for anti-social and paranoid individuals.
