China executes taxi driver

BEIJING – China executed a Beijing taxi driver who killed seven people, including four prostitutes, and the daughter of his former boss, the official Xinhua news agency said yesterday.

Li Pingping, 44, was executed on Tuesday after being sentenced to death in March by a Beijing court. He had murdered the prostitutes between November 2002 and April 2003.After picking them up at local nightclubs and having sex with them, Li killed and dismembered them and dumped the remains in a garbage pit near his home, Xinhua said.Li murdered them because he felt they made money more easily than taxi drivers, it said.He had also stabbed to death his ex-employer, as well as the man’s wife and 12-year-old daughter after he was sacked from a food company, Xinhua said.Li’s wife was sentenced to 15 years in prison for helping with the murders and keeping stolen money, Xinhua said.Communist China has viewed itself as largely free of the mass violence in the West.Its sensationalist but still self-censoring media tends not to play up cases of serial killers.In February, China executed one of its worst serial killers in history, a man who murdered 67 people and raped 24 women in a four-year crime spree.A migrant worker who murdered at least 17 teenage boys in his home was executed last December.- Nampa-ReutersHe had murdered the prostitutes between November 2002 and April 2003.After picking them up at local nightclubs and having sex with them, Li killed and dismembered them and dumped the remains in a garbage pit near his home, Xinhua said.Li murdered them because he felt they made money more easily than taxi drivers, it said.He had also stabbed to death his ex-employer, as well as the man’s wife and 12-year-old daughter after he was sacked from a food company, Xinhua said.Li’s wife was sentenced to 15 years in prison for helping with the murders and keeping stolen money, Xinhua said.Communist China has viewed itself as largely free of the mass violence in the West.Its sensationalist but still self-censoring media tends not to play up cases of serial killers.In February, China executed one of its worst serial killers in history, a man who murdered 67 people and raped 24 women in a four-year crime spree.A migrant worker who murdered at least 17 teenage boys in his home was executed last December.- Nampa-Reuters