Teen boy bags life imprisonment for murdering classmate

A teenage boy simply identified as Zhang, has been sentenced to life imprisonment over the murder of his classmate.

Zhang, alongside two others, received varying punishments by a Chinese court on Monday.

They were accused in April of bullying a 13-year-old classmate surnamed Wang over a long period before killing him in an abandoned greenhouse.

The grim details of the case, in which the murderers reportedly attacked Wang with a shovel before burying his body, drew public attention to how the law deals with juveniles accused of serious crimes.

One of the suspects, Li was given 12 years in jail. The third boy surnamed Ma, whom the court found did not harm the victim, was sentenced to correctional education.

In 2021, China lowered its age of criminal responsibility from 14 to 12 for “special cases” such as inflicting death by “extremely cruel means.”