A woman laying flowers outside the Shenzhen Japanese School on Sept 19, a day after a 10-year-old Japanese boy was fatally stabbed on his way to class. - PHOTO: REUTERS
BEIJING (The Straits Times/ANN): The suspect in September’s fatal stabbing of a 10-year-old schoolboy in China has been formally arrested for murder, with prosecution proceedings set to follow more than two months after the attack, Japanese media reported on Nov 30.
The 44-year-old man had been in detention since he was apprehended near the Shenzhen Japanese School in Guangzhou – the scene of the crime – on Sept 18, Japan’s Kyodo News cited unnamed sources familiar with Japan-China relations as saying.
The man, surnamed Zhong and previously identified as a resident of Dongguan, will face murder charges.
Japanese officials have been asking their Chinese counterparts to share details of their investigations, but no information on a potential motive has been disclosed.
The boy, whose father is Japanese and mother is Chinese, was attacked on Sept 18 while making his way to school. He was taken to hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries the following morning.
The attack had left him bleeding profusely from wounds to his abdomen and legs, Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun reported.
The Chinese authorities have said the attack was an isolated incident, amid Chinese and Japanese social media users linking the date of the stabbing to the anniversary of the staged Mukden incident in 1931, which preceded Japan’s invasion of China’s Manchuria.
The incident followed a June incident in Jiangsu province’s Suzhou city, where a Japanese woman and her son were attacked by a Chinese man with a knife.
A Chinese woman died after being seriously wounded while intervening to stop the attacker.
Although it is unclear if the attacks were linked to anti-Japanese sentiment, the local Japanese community has been sufficiently spooked.
One housewife said she intends to remind her child not to speak Japanese outside the home or do anything else that may reveal his nationality.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry official told the director-general of Japan’s consular affairs bureau in October that information on the Shenzhen incident will be provided in accordance with judicial procedures.
In a meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa in September, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi called for Japan to view the incident “calmly and rationally and avoid politicising or escalating the issue”, adding that Beijing “will as always safeguard the safety of all foreign citizens in China”. - The Straits Times/ANN
