China court hands down life sentence for boy under 14 in classmate’s murder

BEIJING: The case, heard in a court in Hebei province, revolved around three boys who were all under the age of 14 at the time of the crime. The trio was accused of relentlessly bullying a 13-year-old classmate, Wang, before luring him to an abandoned greenhouse in April 2021, where they attacked him with a shovel and buried his body.

The court found one boy, surnamed Zhang, guilty of intentional homicide and handed him a life sentence. A second boy, surnamed Li, received a 12-year prison term, while the third, surnamed Ma, was sentenced to correctional education after being found not to have directly harmed the victim.
The case has drawn national attention due to the severity of the crime and the age of the perpetrators. In 2021, China amended its criminal laws, lowering the minimum age of responsibility from 14 to 12 for “special cases” involving heinous crimes, such as murder committed with “extremely cruel means.”
The prosecution highlighted the “particularly cruel” nature of the killing and emphasized that the circumstances warranted criminal responsibility despite the defendants’ young age.