Man who plowed car into crowd in China, killing 35, sentenced to death

A man who killed 35 people by plowing his car into a crowd at a sports center in southern China has been sentenced to death, state media reported on Friday.

Fan Weiqiu, 62, rammed his car into people exercising at the outdoor venue in the city of Zhuhai last month, in the country’s deadliest known act of violence against the public in a decade.

China has been gripped by a surge of sudden episodes of violence targeting random members of the public – including children – in recent months as economic growth stutters, unnerving a public long accustomed to low violent crime rates and ubiquitous surveillance.

Fan was sentenced at the Zhuhai Intermediate People’s Court on Friday after pleading guilty earlier in the day, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Shortly before 8 p.m. on November 11, Fan drove his car into the crowd, in a rage caused by his failed marriage and what he saw as an unfair divorce settlement, the court concluded.

As his small off-road vehicle mowed across the grounds of Zhuhai Sports Center, he hit dozens of people exercising around a track.

After the attack, officers found Fan in the car trying to injure himself with a knife and took him to hospital, police said in their previous statement.

“The court finds that defendant Fan Weiqiu’s criminal behavior was despicable; the nature of the crime particularly was brutal; the way the crime was committed was particularly cruel,” the court said, as quoted by CCTV.

The attack had the highest such death toll has seen since 2014, when a string of attacks rocked the far western region of Xinjiang.

The hit-and-run prompted Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who described the attack as “extremely vicious,” to call for severe punishment, CCTV previously reported.

Fan’s sentencing came just days after another Chinese court handed down a suspended death sentence to a man who rammed his car into crowds outside a primary school in central Hunan province injuring 30 people, including 18 students.