Hired thug executed for killing 15-year-old over land disputes
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A man working for a real estate developer was executed Thursday for killing a 15-year-old teenager following a land dispute in northwest China' s Shaanxi Province.
Song Feiran, of Songxi Village, the provincial capital Xi'an, was hired by Zhang Jianhua and Song Kangmin, staff of Shaanxi Haosheng Co., Ltd., a real estate company, to intimidate those Wanjunzhai villagers who refused to move and were seeking higher prices for their land from the company in late June, 2007, according to local prosecutors.
On July 7, Song Feiran, along with five villagers, stabbed He An, the teenager, to death in He's family store. This followed the victim's elder brother, He Ming, contacting the police after he caught a company security guard sabotaging Wanjunzhai village's power supply facilities on July 2.
The Xi' an Intermediate People' s Court sentenced Song Feiran to death on November 28, 2008, while Zhang Jianhua and Song Kangmin received a life sentence and 13-years in prison, respectively.
However, both sides appealed to Shaanxi Provincial Higher People' s Court in November 2009. The court upheld the previous ruling, though it did shorten Song Kangmin' s sentence to 6 years behind bars.
