China executes 2017 Kindergarten knife attacker at Pingxiang: Xinhua

China has executed a farmer who slashed several children with a knife at a kindergarten in the southern city in 2017, state media reported on Monday. In January 2017, Qin Peng'an brought a kitchen knife to the kindergarten in Youyi town, Pingxiang city and attacked children out of retaliation. Four children were seriously injured while eight others received minor injuries. Qin was executed last Friday after the Supreme Court reviewed his case and approved the death sentence, Xinhua news agency reported.

After the attack, Qin, a peasant from the village of Nanshan in Pingxiang, escaped and later surrendered to the police, according to the statement issued by the Supreme People's Court (SPC).

In August 2017, the Intermediate People's Court of Chongzuo sentenced Qin to death and deprived him of his political rights for life for intentional homicide. Qin appealed, but his appeal was dismissed by the Higher People's Court of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region later that year. The verdict was then submitted to the SPC for approval in accordance with the law. After reviewing the case, the SPC held that Qin's behaviour had constituted the crime of intentional homicide and should be punished according to law.

Although Qin's attempted murder failed and he turned himself in, it was still not enough to punish him leniently, said the SPC. China has faced a string of unrelated knife attacks in school and kindergartens in recent years. They have usually been carried out by people seeking revenge against officials or individuals, or who are suffering from mental health problems.

In October, a knife-wielding woman attacked children at a kindergarten in China's southwestern city of Chongqing on Friday, injuring 14 of them. In June, a 29-year-old man fatally stabbed two children outside a primary school in Shanghai, while nine schoolchildren were stabbed to death in a county in Shaanxi province in April. Such attacks have forced authorities to increase security around classrooms.

(With inputs from agencies.)