China sentences man to death over fatal stabbing involving Japanese national

By Berk Kutay Gokmen

ISTANBUL (AA) – A Chinese court on Thursday sentenced a man to death for stabbing three people, including fatally injuring a bus attendant and wounding a Japanese mother and her child, according to officials in Tokyo.

The incident occurred near Shanghai on June 24 last year when the man attacked the victims at a Japanese bus stop in Suzhou, a city in eastern Jiangsu province.

The convicted attacker, Zhou Jia Sheng, 52, "in debt and unwilling to live," stabbed the bus attendant after the latter attempted to intervene, Kyodo News reported.

The Suzhou Intermediate People's Court handed down the death sentence but did not reference the Japanese nationals injured during the attack.

This incident is one of several knife attacks reported in China last year. On November 11, a knife assault at a vocational school in Jiangsu left eight people dead and 17 injured.

Other notable attacks include an incident in September when a 44-year-old man stabbed a 10-year-old Japanese student in southern Shenzhen and another in June in northeastern China, where four US college instructors and a local tourist were injured.