Street hawker at heart of controversial chengguan homicide case executed

A street hawker at the centre of a highly controversial double homicide case that gripped the nation was executed today, a court in the northeastern city of Shenyang said, ending a relentless four-year campaign by supporters and activist lawyers to reverse the man's death sentence.

The news was followed by Xia’s wife expressing her grief and his attorney’s strong opposition, inspiring widespread online sympathy and debate over the sentence.

Xia was an unlicensed street vendor from Shenyang who peddled meat skewers. In May 2009, he was roughed up and taken away by chengguan, or city management officers for an interrogation. In a chengguan office's interrogation room, he stabbed two officers to death before fleeing the scene.

Xia and his attorney argued he was acting in self-defence, claiming the two officers assaulted him first during the interrogation, although the statement was rebuffed by other chengguan officials. Police said there was no other eyewitness to the incident in the interrogation room.

But the majority of the general public has expressed their support of Xia, maintaining sceptical of the accounts of chengguan officers who are notorious for repeated rogue behaviour and violence against illegal vendors.