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Food vendor executed for officers’ murder
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Xia Junfeng, a 36-year-old street food vendor who drew widespread sympathy after being found guilty of fatally stabbing two urban management officers, was executed yesterday, the Intermediate People’s Court in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, announced.
Xia and his wife Zhang Jing were taken to Shenyang’s Urban Management and Law Enforcement Bureau for questioning on May 16, 2009, after they had set up their stand near a crossroads in the provincial capital.
They had been warned several times that it was forbidden to set up a stand there, the court heard at his trial in November the same year.
There was some pushing and shoving as Xia tried to prevent urban management officers, or chengguan in Chinese, from taking away a gas cylinder, but he eventually agreed to go with them to their office. Prosecutors said Xia began to argue with three employees there and the argument turned to violence when Xia produced a knife and stabbed them. Shen Kai and Zhang Xudong died while Zhang Wei was seriously injured.
Xia fled the scene but was caught later the same day.
Xia told the court he had been defending himself after being beaten.
The Shenyang intermediate court found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to death.
The Liaoning Higher People’s Court upheld the verdict on May 9, 2011.
The higher court said there was no evidence that the officers were threatening Xia and that he had stabbed them in self-defense.
Xia’s wife attracted public attention with a haunting series of messages on her Sina Weibo account as she documented the day of his execution. Early yesterday, Zhang wrote: “I’ve vowed not to cry, to let my husband go peacefully.”
Later, in a post forwarded more than 20,000 times, she wrote: “My mother-in-law is falling apart. She’s sobbing hard, and her spirit isn’t well. What can I do?”
Zhang said she had been told to claim Xia’s ashes this morning.
Zhang told the People’s Daily website that her family of four, including Xia’s parents and her son, were living in poverty on less than 2,000 yuan (US$326) a month. She also said her son was being bullied at school. But he didn’t fight back, she said, scared of what might happen. “What if I beat them dead?” he told his mother.
Chengguan are often criticized for using excessive force and there had been calls for Xia’s life to be spared amid claims he had been provoked into stabbing the officers.
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