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A man who killed dozens of people by hitting people exercising outside a stadium in southern China with his car has been sentenced to death.
Fan Weiqiu was charged with “endangering public safety,” according to a court statement.
At least 35 people were killed and dozens more injured in the Nov. 11 attack in Zhuhai, considered the deadliest on Chinese soil in a decade.
According to the court, the 62-year-old decided to drive his car at high speed through the crowd at an athletics track because he was “unhappy” with the distribution of his assets following his divorce.
The court described his motive as “extremely vile” and “the methods” as “particularly cruel.” One witness told Caixin magazine that he had driven “in a loop” leaving the victims “injured in all areas of the athletics track,” a popular place for people to exercise.
Fan, who was initially reported to be in a coma after suffering self-inflicted knife wounds, admitted his guilt in front of the victims’ families and members of the public, Chinese media reported.
The attack was one of 19 targeting strangers that took place in China this year, including two within a week of the Zhuhai attack.
Not all have vehicles involved. In February, a mass shooting and stabbing attack in Shandong left at least 21 dead. That incident was heavily censored by Chinese authorities.
In total, at least 63 people have been killed and 166 injured in these attacks. This is a sharp increase compared to previous years: 16 dead and 40 injured in 2023, for example.
Some have suggested that the rise in random attacks could signal a general rise in frustration and anger as the economy slows and uncertainty about the future grows.
“These are symptoms of a society with a lot of repressed grievances,” Lynette Ong, a professor of Chinese politics at the University of Toronto in Canada, told the AFP news agency in November.
