Three teenagers detained for killing classmate spark controversy in China

In the 13-year-old boy’s final recorded moments before his death, surveillance cameras showed him sitting on a scooter surrounded by three classmates. An hour later, his phone died and relatives began a frantic search.

The next day, police made a shocking discovery in a village in northern China’s Hebei province: the boy’s body was buried under a tarp in an abandoned vegetable greenhouse.

Three of his teenage classmates have been detained on suspicion of murdering the boy, a case that has captured China’s attention, sparking outrage and wild debate over the suspects’ ages and raising questions about bullying and social responsibility in rural China. Reflect.

Police in Feixiang District, Handan City only revealed the boy’s surname: Wang. They said in a statement on Sunday that the boy was killed on March 10 and the suspect was detained the next day. A police investigator told CCTV on Monday that the crime was premeditated and that the suspect dug the hole twice, once the day before and another on the day of the killing.

Wang’s relatives and his lawyers said in interviews with Chinese media and in social media posts that the boy had long been the victim of bullying and was forced to give money to a classmate before he was killed. They said police identified the suspected killer after reviewing surveillance footage and interviewing classmates.

“He was beaten to death and his body was mutilated beyond recognition,” Wang’s father wrote on Chinese social media platform Douyin. “I hope the government will be fair, open and just, punish them severely and make the murderers pay with their lives!”

The case will be a test of a 2021 law change that lowers the age at which children can be charged with crimes from 14 to 12.

Wang’s father, aunt and grandmother did not respond to requests for comment. A person who answered the phone number for his lawyer’s law firm told The Associated Press they were waiting for comment, saying they were inundated with requests for interviews. Calls to the principal of the boys’ school went unanswered, as did calls to relatives of the two suspects.

Both the victim and the suspect are under 14 years old. Media reports describe them as “left-behind” children, a term used to describe rural children who are often cared for by their grandparents because their parents work in distant cities.

As details of last weekend’s tragedy emerged, concerns were once again raised about the social and psychological welfare of these children, their exposure to violent content online and the ability of the country’s social services to care for them. Posts and videos by Wang’s relatives received millions of views and thousands of comments.

“Too little attention is paid to the mental health of rural minors,” said one commenter on the Chinese social media platform Weibo. “I think this could happen again.”

Zhang Dongshuo, a Beijing-based defense lawyer not involved in the case, said Wang’s death was the latest in a series of teenage murders in China that have sparked debate about how old a child should be held responsible for a crime.

“Generally speaking, such cases involving minors are rare,” Zhang said. “But recently, more and more such cases have been reported in the media, triggering discussions in Chinese society about changing the age of criminal responsibility.”

In 2019, a 13-year-old boy admitted to sexually assaulting and killing a 10-year-old girl, but escaped criminal charges because Chinese law at the time stipulated that only those over 14 years old could bear criminal responsibility. Two years later, the age of criminal responsibility was lowered to 12, but the government stipulated that prosecutions could only be brought with the approval of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, China’s top prosecutorial body.

Zhang added that parents’ lack of guidance for “left-behind” children is a long-standing social problem, but the issue of how “left-behind” children are raised has not yet been completely resolved.

“Many people believe that schools and the government should be responsible for children’s education, but this means that if relevant government departments and schools cannot educate them effectively, the minor is likely to fall into an educational vacuum,” he said.

Wang’s death was widely reported in state media, despite signs that Chinese authorities are closely monitoring public sentiment. On Sunday, the Wang family’s lawyer, Zang Fanqing, said in a live broadcast that he and Wang’s father were not allowed to see the boy’s body before it was suddenly cut off. The next day, Zang said on social media that they were allowed to see the body.

Police issued a public statement on Sunday asking the public not to spread rumors to protect the victim’s privacy and avoid further harm to the boy’s family.

His family has said they intend to press criminal charges. In a video posted by Wang’s father on Monday, he said seeing his son’s body was “more brutal than I imagined.”

“Your father is not afraid, he is just upset and angry,” Wang’s father wrote to his son. “Wait for your father to avenge you!”