'THE MURDERER WAS led out of the court after his death sentence was pronounced. Two hours later, a single shot rang out and dispatched this evil spirit to hell.'
With these words the Legal Daily, the newspaper of the Ministry of Justice, recently described the final hours of Zhao Wei, one of China's most notorious killers, whose gang of highway robbers was responsible for the deaths of 11 people in the northeast province of Liaoning.
The newspaper said Zhao, 34, who had previously served six years in prison for violent crimes, was a cold-blooded killer who deserved his sentence. It reported his last words to the court as: 'I had so many tricks but I wasted them. If I had been a little more careful, the police could not have caught me and I could have become a millionaire within three years.'
For the Communist Party, the death penalty is vital to maintain social order, especially when unemployment and internal migration in China are at their highest levels since 1949 and the gap between rich and poor is growing.
China executes more people than any other country - although the precise number remains a state secret. According to Amnesty International, the figure last year was at least 1,800, more than in the rest of the world. But the true total is believed to be far higher.
There are 68 capital offences under Chinese law, including corruption, homicide, bank robbery and stealing major cultural relics. That number has already fallen in recent years - prior to the 1997 revision of the Criminal Law, there were 76. Removed from the list were speculation, hooliganism, pimping and most forms of robbery.