Man sentenced to death for Guangxi school attack

A man who stabbed dozens of people with a knife at a school in June was sentenced to death for intentional homicide by the Wuzhou Intermediate People's Court in South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region on Tuesday.

The court gave the death penalty to Li Xiaowen, a former security guard at the Central Primary School in the town of Wangfu in Wuzhou, depriving him of political rights for life at the same time.

The court said in a statement posted on its official WeChat account that the behavior of the defendant, who indiscriminately attacked teachers and students on campus while venting his anger and intentionally harmed them, constituted the crime of intentional homicide under Chinese Criminal Law.

Considering his "extremely despicable" motive, "extremely cruel" criminal mean and "extremely negative" effect to society, "we've made the ruling and decided to give him the sentence," the court added in the statement.

But details, including the exact number of injuries in the stabbing and whether the defendant will appeal to a higher court, have not been released by the intermediate court, which heard the case on July 31.

According to a report by Beijing Daily, the attack happened on the morning on June 4, leading to a total of 41 injured teachers and students in the school.

The report said Li had disputes with one of his colleagues, surnamed Huang, for trivial matters and was also unhappy with the school's deputy head regarding holiday-related issues, so Li decided to get back at them.

At about 8 am on the day of the stabbings, with four knives in a bag, Li arrived at the school's guard office and first stabbed Huang in the head, the report said.

Then, he went upstairs to attack students and teachers in two classrooms, and continued stabbing Huang after he returned downstairs, it said.

He also stabbed the school's deputy head, who was trying to stop him on the playground, the report said, adding he was not controlled until other teachers and police officers arrived at the scene.

All the wounded were sent to hospital for treatment in a timely manner, according to the report.

In the wake of the attack, central authorities issued an emergency circular, urging all provinces to learn lessons from the incident and strengthen oversight in an effort to ensure teaching order and faculty safety.