Man executed for knifing Chongqing traffic police officer to death

Zhang Guohong, who killed a traffic police officer in southwestern China’s Chongqing on Feb 18 last year, was executed on Tuesday morning.

Yang Xuefeng, a traffic police officer from the Chongqing Public Security Bureau’s Yubei branch, stopped Zhang, who was riding a motorcycle, after he saw the two passengers sitting behind Zhang not wearing helmets and gave Zhang a ticket for the offense.

Zhang went home and armed himself with a knife before returning to the crossroad where he attacked Yang from behind. Yang put up a fight before Zhang was eventually held back by two other policemen. Yang suffered cuts to his neck, chest, abdomen and shoulders during the fight, and later died from loss of blood.

Zhang was sentenced to death by the Chongqing Intermediate People’s Court on July 24. The Chongqing High People’s Court upheld the sentence after Zhang lodged an appeal, and then submitted its decision to the country’s top court for review. The Supreme People’s Court approved the execution after reviewing the death sentence.

Aybek Askhar contributed to this story.