BEIJING (Reuters) - China executed a man on Thursday for killing nine students and injuring 11 others in a knife attack at a middle school in central China’s Shaanxi province in April, according to a post on a Chinese court’s official social media account.

Zhao Zewei was sentenced to death in July after being charged with homicide for attacking 19 students near a middle school in Mizhi county in China’s northwestern province of Shaanxi on April 27.

After receiving approval from China’s supreme court, the death sentence was carried out in Mizhi county of Shaanxi on Thursday, according to the statement from the Yulin City Intermediate Court.

Zhao had said he had taken knives into his former school in order to vent frustration and anger over his misfortunes in life and the bullying he was subjected to while attending the school, the statement said.

But the motives for depriving others of life were “despicable” and the methods were especially cruel, and so the supreme court agreed to the use of the death penalty, it cited the supreme court as ruling.

Violent crime is rarer in China than many other countries, due in part to strict gun controls and tight security in major cities. Recent years have seen a series of knife and axe attacks, however, including one this year in Beijing.

China does not release official figures for the number of people it executes every year, but rights groups estimate that more people are executed annually in the country than in all other countries combined.</s>A man whose knife attack left nine schoolchildren dead and injured 12 others has been executed iby firing squad.

Zhao Zewei was sentenced to death in July for the massacre – reportedly motivated by a grudge against the school in northern Shaanxi province, China, which he had attended as a child.

The defendant ‘intentionally deprived others of their lives,’ the court that handed down the decision said in a statement on its official social media account.

‘Because his work and life were not going well, Zhao Zewei held a grudge in his heart and took it out on innocents,’ it said.

The April attack on the Number Three Middle School came as children were heading home from class.

At the time, Zhao told police he had been ‘bullied’ when he attended the school as a child, ‘hated’ his classmates and decided to use a ‘dagger’ to exact revenge.

Incidents have targeted schoolchildren in the past, forcing authorities to increase security around schools.

In January 2017, a man armed with a kitchen knife stabbed and wounded 11 children at a kindergarten in the southern Guangxi Zhuang region.

The previous February, a knife-wielding assailant wounded 10 children on the southern island of Hainan, before committing suicide.

The man had entered the school in the afternoon, claiming that he was there to pick up his son.</s>Beijing, Sep 27 (efe-epa) – China on Thursday executed a man who stabbed nine secondary-school students to death and wounded 11 others in April in Shaanxi province, the People´s Daily newspaper reported.

Zhao Zewei was sentenced to death in July after a court found him guilty of murder following the April 27 stabbing attack at a high school in Mizhi County.</s>A man in China has been executed for killing nine schoolchildren and wounding a dozen others in a stabbing spree, according to a court.

Knife-wielding Zhao Zewei, 28, assaulted a group of pupils in April in a revenge attack outside the Number Three Middle School of Mizhi County, north-west China's Shaanxi Province.

Zhao was convicted of intentional homicide and sentenced to death in July by the Yulin Intermediate Court in Shaanxi Province.

The news came less than a week after a nanny convicted of arson was executed in east China's Hangzhou; and three months after two drug dealers were sentenced to death in front of hundreds of people in south China's Haikou before being put to death immediately.

According to China's Xinhua News Agency, Zhao was executed by shooting.

In a statement issued by Yulin Intermediate Court today, Zhao was executed in the morning on an execution ground in Mizhi County.

The court said Zhao had not appealed against the death sentence.

It also said the death sentence had been reviewed and approved by the Shaanxi High People's Court and the Supreme Court of China.

In July during the sentencing, the Yulin Intermediate Court described Zhao's attack as an act of revenge.

It said Zhao, who was unemployed, used to study at the school and he thought he was laughed at by his classmates at the time. Therefore, he held a grudge and plotted the assault.

The court said Zhao was frustrated with work and life before the attack.

Initially, he planned to attack his former classmates, however he failed to find them. As a result, Zhao decided to attack the school's current pupils.

Zhao bought five knives through the internet in March and April.

On April 27 at around 5pm, he carried three knives and headed to Beimendong in Mizhi to wait for the pupils to finish school.

At 6.14pm, Zhao ran towards the students and started stabbing them with his weapons.

The attack saw nine students killed, four seriously wounded and eight lightly wounded.

The court found Zhao's motives 'despicable' and his means of killing 'particularly cruel'.

China has executed a number of high-profile criminals this year.

Less than a week ago, a nanny in Hangzhou was executed for deliberately setting her employer's flat on fire, which killed the family of four.

Mo Huanjing (莫焕晶), 35, was sentenced to death in February this year after being convicted of arson and theft by the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court in east China's Zhejiang Province.

In June, a court in Haikou sentenced two drug dealers to death in front of hundreds of people. The two criminals received the verdict on a sports ground before being put to execution immediately.

Many of the spectators were young students who were organised to watch the public sentencing by their school in an attempt to warn them against committing crimes, especially drug trafficking.</s>BEIJING, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Zhao Huan will be named chairman of China Development Bank (CDB), according to a statement from the bank.

Zhao has been appointed as communist party boss of CDB and was nominated as chairman of the bank, it said.

Zhao was president of Agricultural Bank of China before the move. (Reporting by Shu Zhang and Beijing Monitoring Desk)</s>SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP)  A West Texas high school was locked down briefly after a man police suspected of being mentally ill entered the school brandishing a knife.

A police statement says officers were called to Central High School in San Angelo, Texas, just before 11:30 a.m. Monday after school officials reported a suicidal man with a knife.

Off-duty police working on the school campus were the first to respond, finding the man unarmed and lying prone on the floor in the school”s office wing.

Mental health deputies from the Tom Green County Sheriff”s Department took the 42-year-old man into custody and drove him to a hospital for evaluation.

No students or faculty were involved or injured.
China executes Zhao Zewei by firing squad, the man responsible for killing nine children and injuring 11 others in a knife attack at a middle school in the Shaanxi province.