Man gets death for SUV ramming, stabbing rampage

A man who killed 15 people when he rammed into a crowd with his SUV and then attacked passers-by in Hengyang’s Hengdong county in Hunan province was sentenced to death on Wednesday.

Yang Zanyun drove his Land Rover into pedestrians at Mijiang Square in the county at around 7:30 pm on Sept 12 and then went on a rampage with a dagger and a shovel. He was detained later.

Fifteen people died in the attack and 43 were injured, including six seriously.

At a hearing on Wednesday, Yang, 54, was found guilty of endangering public safety and was sentenced to death, the city’s intermediate people’s court said in a statement posted online.

“Yang’s behavior was extremely cruel, and it seriously harmed the public,” the court said, adding that the severity of the crime justified capital punishment.

More than 300 people attended the hearing, including journalists and the defendant’s family, the statement said. It did not say whether or not Yang had filed an appeal.

Although no more details about the conviction were released by the court on Wednesday, local police said after the man was detained that his desire for revenge on society motivated the attack.

They added that Yang had been jailed several times before in connection with various crimes.

In 1992 he was sentenced to two years in prison by the county court for intentional injury, and in 2001 the same court sentenced him to another three years for dealing drugs.

In subsequent years, Yang was jailed for defiance and brawling, as well as for starting a fire.

Records posted on China Judgments Online, an official website of the Supreme People’s Court for disclosing court rulings, said that Yang was born in Hengdong county in 1964, has a junior high school education and was unemployed.