Together, they had committed a crime of unimaginable cruelty.
A father and his new partner who organized the murder of the man's two young children by deliberately throwing them out of a 15th floor window were executed in China on Wednesday, a court announced.
The tragedy took place in November 2020 in an apartment building in the large city of Chongqing (South-West).
The father, Zhang Bo, explained that he had killed his 1-year-old son and his 2-year-old daughter, from a first marriage, to please his new partner, Ye Chengchen, and thus be able to marry her.
The latter's family did not accept her marrying a man who already had children.
“On the morning of January 31, 2024, the Chongqing No. 5 Intermediate People's Court followed the execution order issued by the Supreme People's Court and executed Zhang Bo and Ye Chengchen,” the court said in a statement on Wednesday.
The couple was sentenced to death the first time, then again on appeal last year.
A crime disguised as accidental falls
When he began his romantic relationship with Zhang Bo, his new partner Ye Chengchen did not know that he was still married and had children.
When she found out, however, she decided to continue the relationship.
Under the divorce finally granted in February 2020, the father undertook to pay alimony to his ex-wife and to raise his 1-year-old son until he was 6 years old.
His new partner nevertheless believed that the very existence of these children constituted “a burden for their future life together” and an “obstacle” to her marriage to Zhang Bo, the court said on Wednesday.
The young woman thus “exerted constant pressure” on her partner so that he would kill them, according to the same source.
The two “decided to disguise the crime as accidental falls”, underlined the court, denouncing an “inhumane” mode of operation which “defies the limits of morality”.
China reduced the number of crimes punishable by death from 55 to 46 in 2015.
These still include intentional homicide, rape and drug trafficking, but now exclude pimping or arms smuggling.
Convicts are generally put to death by lethal injection.
However, the number of people executed each year in the country remains secret.