China Executes Man Who Killed 9 Sleeping Students

A 21-year-old man who broke into a high school dormitory Nov. 25 and stabbed nine Chinese boys to death as they slept has been executed, the government said today.

Yan Yanming was put to death Tuesday in the central province of Henan, where he was convicted of attacking the boys in the city of Ruzhou, the official New China News Agency reported.

Yan’s mother turned him in to police after he attempted suicide the day after the attack, according to earlier reports.

Authorities did not announce a possible motive for the attack.

The trial and execution were unusually swift for Chinese courts and might have been expedited in an effort to reassure the public amid a series of knife attacks at Chinese schools.

In September, farmer Yang Guozhu slashed 28 children at a day-care center in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou.

About a week later, Chinese media reported, bus driver Jia Qingyou from eastern China’s Shandong province slashed 25 primary school students with a kitchen knife. He was executed in November.

In August, a 52-year-old doorman used a kitchen knife to kill one child and wound 18 people at a Beijing kindergarten. The man was reported to have a history of mental illness.