BEIJING (AP) — The government has executed four people for their roles in an intricate smuggling operation that abducted and sold dozens of children in southern China over a two-year period, official media said Saturday.
The four were executed Friday in Guiyang, the capital of the southern province of Guizhou, the Legal Daily newspaper said. It didn't say how they were killed, but most executions in China are carried out with a bullet in the back of the head or neck.
Among the inmates executed was Chen Qifu, identified as the leader of the smuggling ring.
The Guiyang Intermediate Court issued the sentences in May after a three-day trial, convicting 24 people in connection with 41 cases of kidnapped children. Six other smugglers received life sentences. Six other smugglers received life sentences, it said; three of those were changed to 15-year sentences on appeal.
From 1997 to 1999, according to the newspaper, the smugglers operated a network for kidnapping and selling children, most of them extremely young. It did not say how or where the children were sold, though such activity is said to be common in the more remote parts of China.
Police in Guizhou rescued more than 40 kidnapped children while investigating the case, the Beijing Evening News, another newspaper, reported Saturday.
On Friday, before the four convicts were executed, dozens of parents rallied outside the Guiyang court, advocating a continued crackdown by police on such child-smuggling operations, the Legal Daily said.