A court in northern China sentenced a teenager to life in prison on Monday for the brutal killing of a classmate, a case that has reignited discussions about the country’s handling of juvenile offenders.
The incident involved three boys, all under 14 at the time, who were accused in April of repeatedly bullying a 13-year-old boy, identified by his surname Wang, before fatally attacking him.
The murder occurred in an abandoned greenhouse, where the perpetrators reportedly used a shovel to assault Wang and subsequently buried his body.
The court in Hebei Province convicted one of the boys, surnamed Zhang, of intentional homicide and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
A second boy, surnamed Li, received a 12-year prison sentence. The third boy, surnamed Ma, was found not to have directly harmed the victim and was sentenced to correctional education.
The case marks one of the first applications of China’s revised criminal responsibility law, which in 2021 lowered the age of liability from 14 to 12 for severe crimes involving “extremely cruel means,” such as murder.
Prosecutors argued that because the offenders were between 12 and 14 years old at the time of the crime, they were legally accountable under the amended law.
The court highlighted the “particularly cruel” methods used in the killing and described the circumstances as “particularly vile.”
Under Chinese law, murder can result in life imprisonment or the death penalty for adult offenders.