The three suspects, all under the age of 14 at the time of the murders, are accused of bullying a 13-year-old classmate, Kenneth Wang, for a long period of time before killing him in an abandoned greenhouse in April. was
The gruesome details of the case, in which the killers allegedly attacked Wang with a shovel before burying his body, drew attention to how the law deals with young people accused of serious crimes.
A boy, surnamed Zhang, was found guilty of premeditated murder, a court in northern China’s Hebei said on Monday.
Another boy, named Lee, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. A third boy, named Ma, who the court ruled did not harm the victim, was sentenced to remedial education.
In 2021, China lowered its age of criminal responsibility from 14 to 12 for “special cases” such as death by “extremely cruel means”.
The Hebe case was thought to be one of the first cases in which a lower age limit was applied.
Prosecutors said that because the suspects were “over 12 years of age but under 14 at the time of the crime … they should bear criminal responsibility according to Chinese law”.
He added that the means of killing “were particularly cruel, and the conditions particularly disgusting.”
Under Chinese law, murder is punishable by imprisonment or the death penalty.