Former Peking University student who killed mother executed

Wu Xieyu, a former Peking University student who killed his mother, was executed on Wednesday after China's top court approved his death sentence.

The execution was carried out by the Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court in Fujian province, where Wu was convicted of intentional homicide, fraud and the illegal purchase of identity cards and given the death penalty.

The court told Wu, 29, he had the right to apply to meet family members before the execution, but he did not make an application. The execution process supervised by Fuzhou prosecutors.

According to the Supreme People's Court statement approving the death sentence, Wu, from Fujian, was pessimistic and tried to commit suicide. After his father died of an illness he thought the life of his mother, Xie Tianqin, was meaningless, so he prepared to kill her in early 2015 and bought some items for that purpose.

On July 10 that year, when Xie arrived home, Wu hit her repeatedly in the head and face with a dumbbell, resulting in her death, and then fled the scene, the statement said.

Previous reports said Wu wrapped his mother's body in layers of bedsheets, plastic sheets and activated carbon bags after the killing.

To cover up the killing, Wu "borrowed" 1.44 million yuan ($201,000) from relatives and friends, telling them he and his mother would need the money when she accompanied him as he traveled overseas to study. In reality, he squandered the money, the top court said.

He also purchased more than 10 identity cards to hide his real identity and avoid arrest, it added.

The relatives became suspicious when Xie failed to contact them for some time, and they found his mother's body in February 2016 in her faculty dormitory apartment at the Fuzhou middle school where she worked.

Wu was then named as suspect by local police. He was captured in Chongqing in 2019 after being on the run for more than three years.

The Fuzhou court heard Wu's case in late 2020, and handed down the death penalty in August 2021.

In May last year, the Fujian High People's Court upheld the original ruling.

In China, a death sentence made by lower courts must be submitted to the top court for review. The sentence can only be carried out after it is approved by the top court.

On Wednesday, the top court said that Wu's behavior had constituted the crimes of intentional killing and the illegal purchase of ID cards, and the sum of the money involved in the fraud he perpetrated was extremely large.

"Wu should be punished, as his killing method was cruel, which seriously violated human ethics and trampled on the public's emotion, with severe negative effects to society," it said.

It agreed with the verdicts made and upheld by the lower courts, saying the facts in the case were clear, the evidence was sufficient, the application of the law was correct and the sentencing was appropriate.