The affair aroused great emotion when it occurred in November 2020 in the immense city of Chongqing, in the southwest of the country. A father and his new partner, who had been sentenced to death for murder, were executed in China on Wednesday, a court announced. The couple was guilty of killing two young children by deliberately throwing them from the 15th floor of an apartment building.
The couple’s motivations shocked the Chinese population. The father, Zhang Bo, had in fact explained that he had killed his 1-year-old son and his 2-year-old daughter, from a first marriage, to please his new partner, Ye Chengchen, and thus be able to marry her. The latter’s family did not accept her marrying a man who already had children.
The crime disguised as accidental falls
“On the morning of January 31, 2024, the Chongqing No. 5 Intermediate People’s Court followed the execution order issued by the Supreme People’s Court and executed Zhang Bo and Ye Chengchen,” the court said in a statement on Wednesday. The couple was sentenced to death the first time, then again on appeal last year.
When he began his romantic relationship with Zhang Bo, his new partner Ye Chengchen did not know that he was still married and had children. When she found out, however, she decided to continue the relationship, believing despite everything that the very existence of these children constituted “a burden on their future life together” and an “obstacle” to her marriage to Zhang Bo , the court said on Wednesday.
The couple had “decided to disguise the crime as accidental falls”, underlined the court, denouncing an “inhumane” mode of operation which “defies the limits of morality”.
China reduced the number of crimes punishable by death from 55 to 46 in 2015. These still include intentional homicide, rape and drug trafficking, but now exclude pimping or arms smuggling.
Convicts are generally put to death by lethal injection. However, the number of people executed each year in the country remains secret.