Chinese court sentences teenager to life in prison for “particularly cruel” murder of classmate
A Chinese court on Monday sentenced a teenager to life in prison for murdering a classmate, ending a case that sparked a national debate over the treatment of juvenile offenders. The three suspects, all under the age of 14 at the time of the murder, were charged in April with abusing a 13-year-old classmate, surnamed Wang, over a long period before killing him in an abandoned greenhouse.
The grim details of the case, in which the killers allegedly attacked Wang with a shovel before burying his body, have drawn public attention to how the law treats juveniles accused of serious crimes.
One boy, surnamed Zhang, was found guilty of premeditated murder, a court in northern China’s Hebei announced on Monday.
The second boy, surnamed Li, received 12 years in prison. The third boy, surnamed Ma, who the court found did not injure the victim, was sentenced to correctional facilities.
In 2021, China lowered the age limit for criminal responsibility from 14 to 12 for “special cases” such as causing death by “extremely cruel means”.
The Hebei case is considered one of the first to apply a lower age limit.
Prosecutors said that because the defendants were “over 12 but under 14 at the time of the crime… they should bear criminal responsibility” under Chinese law.
It is added that the means of killing were “particularly cruel, and the circumstances particularly nasty”.
Under Chinese law, murder is punishable by imprisonment or the death penalty.
Editor’s note: The title of this article has been corrected to reflect that the convicted teenager was sentenced to life in prison, not the death penalty.
