The children's father was captured screaming after the incident.
Zhang
Bo and his girlfriend Ye Chengchen have both been executed after two
children were pushed to their deaths off a 15th-floor balcony in
southwest China's Chongqing.
A Chinese couple has been executed after they threw their two toddlers to their deaths off a 15th-floor balcony.
The
father, Zhang Bo, murdered his kids after his new girlfriend, Ye
Chengchen, told him she saw them as a "burden on their future together."
The couple were sentenced to death in 2021 over the fatal falls in 2020
of two children from the 15th floor of a residential tower in southwest
China's Chongqing.
Zhang had begun an affair
with Ye, who was initially unaware he was married and had children. She
then urged Zhang to kill his two children, whom she "regarded as
obstacles" to their getting married and a "burden on their future life
together", according to a statement from the Chongqing No. 5
Intermediate People's Court. It was not clear how the couple were
executed, but the most common method in China is lethal injection.
Zhang
claimed at the time that he was asleep when Zhang Ruixue, two, and
Zhang Yangrui, one, fell out of the window and said he was woken up by
people shouting downstairs after discovering the bodies on a grass lawn.
He was filmed at the time banging his head on the wall and crying
uncontrollably, which prosecutors said was all a sham.
The
little girl died instantly, while the baby boy died shortly after from
his injuries. The children's mother, Chen Meilin, told local media that
Zhang asked to look after his daughter on the day that he killed both of
them despite the former couple sharing custody, with the mother taking
care of the girl and the father of the boy.
Chen
said to local media: "At that time, Zhang was on a video phone call
with Ye. She slit her wrists and then Zhang got scared. The phone was
dropped, he picked up the two children, and threw them from the
balcony." According to local media, the father admitted he and Ye had
plotted to kill the children so that they could start a new family
without any children from his former marriage.
Chen
claimed her ex-husband cried in court and apologised for his actions
while his girlfriend denied accusations against her many times. Both
were found guilty of conspiring "to kill his daughter and younger son by
staging an accidental fall from the 15th floor of his apartment
building", state-backed China Daily reported last year.
China
keeps data on its use of the death penalty secret, although rights
group Amnesty International estimates the country is the top executioner
globally. They say: "The use of the death penalty remained shrouded in
secrecy in several countries, including China, North Korea, and Viet Nam
— countries that are known to use the death penalty extensively —
meaning that the true global figure is far higher.
"While
the precise number of those killed in China is unknown, it is clear
that the country remained the world’s most prolific executioner, ahead
of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the USA."
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