China court hands schoolboy a life sentence for murder

Two teenagers in Hebei given prison sentences over the killing of their 13-year-old classmate in March.

A court in northern China has handed lengthy prison terms to two teenagers for murdering their classmate with a shovel, in a case that has triggered a national debate over the treatment of juvenile offenders.

Three suspects, all aged 13 at the time of the murder, were accused in April of bullying a 13-year-old classmate surnamed Wang over a long period before ultimately killing him in an abandoned greenhouse in March.

The grim details of the case, in which the killers reportedly attacked Wang with a shovel before burying his body, drew public attention to how the law deals with juveniles accused of serious crimes.

Two of the suspects, surnamed Zhang and Li, were sentenced to life and 12 years in jail respectively for intentional homicide by a court in the city of Handan in the province of Hebei, China’s CCTV said on Monday. No motive was given.

The court found the methods of the killing “were particularly cruel, and the circumstances were particularly heinous”, it added.