China executes man who spent 17 years on the run after murdering his relatives

China recently executed a man who remained on the run for 17 years after the murder of his relatives in 2003, the judicial press of the Asian country reported today.

Prisoner named Zhuo Yutingarrived in search of his wife at the house of his relatives, in the province Qinghai (West), June 24, 2003, followed by a heated argument with a father-in-law who was 73 at the time.

In the end, Zhuo hit his father-in-law several times on the head, resulting in his death.

Immediately afterwards, he went to the room where his sister-in-law (aged 22) and his mother-in-law (aged 65) were, on whom he ended up fatally slashing their necks with a kitchen knife, threatening to rape his daughter-in-law if she asked for help, a warning that finally came true.

After the attack, which her daughter-in-law survived with minor injuries, Zhuo fled.

According to environment Rule of law dailydue to the “limitations of research capacity then,” Zhuo seemed to “evaporate”.

Arrest of Zhuo Yuting

In May 2020, local authorities offered a 50,000 yuan ($7,300) reward for tips leading to the fugitive’s arrest.

On June 3 of the same year, the hunters discovered that in the municipality of Yenyugou (west), a sparsely populated area, there lived a man named Xiao Liu, who made a living tending the herds of local pastoralists.

On the same day, he was arrested and shortly thereafter confessed his crimes to the police.

The court that sentenced him to death noted “particularly brutal” methods of attack.

On Sunday, Zhuo was executed after the last meeting with relatives, the publication reports.

The Chinese authorities do not provide official figures on the number of people on death row, but in Amnesty International’s 2021 death penalty report, the organization noted that “China continues to be the world’s greatest executioner”, although he continues to consider execution data a state secret and prevents their independent verification. (EFE)