China has executed a convicted murderer after raising his suspended death sentence following a new conviction for attacking another prisoner, state media said on Wednesday.
Xiao Mouping was executed on Tuesday in the southern city of Meizhou, Guangdong province, the local Yangcheng Evening News reported.
Xiao was sentenced to death with a 2-year suspension in 2008 after a court in Meizhou found him guilty of murder, the newspaper said without giving details of the murder case.
In May 2009, 1 week after his punishment for taking a shower outside regulated hours, Xiao attacked a cellmate who he believed had informed prison authorities of the breach. The cellmate suffered minor injuries in the attack, the newspaper said.
Xiao's execution followed a rare case of a court raising a suspended death sentence.
Subject to good behaviour in prison during the two-year suspension, such sentences were normally commuted to up to 20 years in prison until recently. A new rule from May 1 allows courts to impose minimum sentences of 25 years for the most serious offenders whose suspended death sentences are commuted.
China is believed to execute more people annually than the rest of the world put together, but statistics on death sentences and executions are kept secret.
In an annual report in March, London-based Amnesty International said it recorded 527 reported executions in China last year, adding that China was believed to have executed thousands more.
The government claims to have limited the use of capital punishment since introducing a mandatory review of all death sentences by the Supreme People's Court in 2007.
But China retains the death penalty for dozens of offences, including drug trafficking, serious corruption and other non-violent crimes.
Source: Deutsche Presse-Agentur, May 18, 2011
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