A Chinese couple has been executed for murdering the man’s
two children from his previous marriage so they could start a new family
together.
Zhang Bo and his girlfriend Ye Chengchen are believed to have
died by lethal injection on Wednesday after China’s top court recently approved
their death sentence, China Daily reports.
Zhang was convicted of throwing his two children out of a
high-rise apartment window from the 15th floor of a residential tower in
southwest China’s Chongqing in 2020.
Ye was also convicted after the court determined she forced
Zhang to kill the young children, a two-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy,
as she saw them as an “obstacle” and helped stage their deaths as an
“accidental” fall, The Independent reports.
Zhang Bo and his girlfriend Ye Chengchen are believed to have
died by lethal injection on Wednesday.AsiaWire
A Chinese couple have been executed for murdering the man’s
two children from his previous marriage so they could start a new family
together.
Zhang Bo and his girlfriend Ye Chengchen are believed to have
died by lethal injection on Wednesday after China’s top court recently approved
their death sentence, China Daily reports.
Zhang was convicted of throwing his two children out of a
high-rise apartment window from the 15th floor of a residential tower in
southwest China’s Chongqing in 2020.
Ye was also convicted after the court determined she forced
Zhang to kill the young children, a two-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy,
as she saw them as an “obstacle” and helped stage their deaths as an
“accidental” fall, The Independent reports.
The pair were sentenced to death in 2021 but were only
executed this week following a lengthy appeals process which resulted in a second
trial for Zhang and Ye, China Daily states.
The Chongqing High People’s Court upheld the original ruling
and said that the sentences handed down to Zhang and Ye were appropriate.
Zhang was convicted of throwing his two children out of a
high-rise apartment window.AsiaWire
Its ruling was then submitted to the Supreme People’s Court
for approval, which found both their roles and overall influence were
equivalent, with each playing a primary role and being principal offenders.
The court determined their motive was “despicable” and the
means “brutal,” warranting severe consequences in accordance with the law,
according to local media.
It was not clear how they were put to death earlier today,
but the most common method in China is lethal injection, according to the Daily Mail.
A video of Zhang after the incident show him grieving.AsiaWire
Zhang had begun an extramarital affair with Ye without
telling her he was married and had two kids.
But after he divorced his then-wife Chen Melina in February
2020, ye urged Zhang to kill his two children, which she “regarded as
obstacles” to their getting married and a “burden on their future life
together”, the court heard.
After throwing his daughter Zhang Ruixue and son Zhang
Yangrui to their deaths in November 2020, videos of Zhang after the incident
appear to show him grief-stricken at what he had just done.
He was also seen banging his head on the wall and sobbing
uncontrollably, The Express reports.
At the time, Zhang claimed that he was asleep when the
children “fell” and said he woke up to people shouting downstairs.
The children’s mother said Zhang had asked to take care of
his daughter on the day he killed them both.
“The moment I heard my kids were actually thrown out of the
15th floor by their father and the mistress, I couldn’t find any words to
describe my feelings,” she said.
“I couldn’t imagine what my kids had experienced from the
15th floor to the ground. Were they desperate? Were they afraid?”
Zhang and Ye’s crime sent shockwaves across China for its
“cold-blooded” premeditation, as well as the age of the victims.
Their executions quickly rose to the top of a list of
trending topics on Chinese social media site Weibo on Wednesday, receiving nearly
200 million views.
“Today is truly a good day,” read one widely liked comment
under a related post by state news agency Xinhua.
“The punishment fits the crime,” wrote another.
Comments:
Leave a Reply