BEIJING – China executed a couple on Jan 31 for throwing two toddlers out of an apartment building window, in a case that caused nationwide outrage.

Zhang Bo and Ye Chengchen were previously found responsible for the fatal falls of the two-year-old girl and one-year-old boy from the 15th floor of a residential tower in southwest China’s Chongqing.

Zhang, the father of the two children, had begun an affair with Ye, who was initially unaware he was married and had children.

She then urged Zhang to kill his two children, which she saw as “obstacles” to their getting married and a “burden on their future life together”, the Chongqing No. 5 Intermediate People’s Court said in a statement.

In November 2020, Zhang threw his children out of the window of the apartment in the absence of their mother, whom he had agreed to divorce.

Both were found guilty of conspiring “to kill his daughter and younger son by staging an accidental fall from the 15th floor of his apartment building”, state-backed China Daily reported in 2023.

The couple were sentenced to death in December 2021 and executed on Jan 31, the court said.

The news came the same day as another high-profile execution – of Wu Xieyu, who was found guilty of killing his mother by repeatedly striking her with a dumbbell in 2015, a statement by a court in eastern Fujian province said.

China keeps data on its use of the death penalty secret, although rights group Amnesty International estimates that the country is the top executioner globally, with thousands executed and sentenced to death each year.

Sentences are frequently handed down for crimes ranging from drug trafficking to corruption and murder, with lethal injection being the most common method of execution.

Zhang and Ye’s crime sent shock waves across China for its cold-blooded premeditation, as well as the youth of the victims.

News of their executions quickly rose to the top of a list of trending topics on Chinese social media site Weibo on Jan 31, receiving nearly 200 million views.

“Today is truly a good day,” read one widely liked comment under a related post by state news agency Xinhua.

“The punishment fits the crime,” wrote another. AFP