The traditional upsurge in executions ahead of the...

The traditional upsurge in executions ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday gathered pace with 15 more people reported to have been put to death, bringing to at least 31 the number executed in a period of a week, AFP reported.
Three teenage farmers from Cangshan county in east China's Shandong province were executed for killing a policeman, the Xinhua news agency said. The Intermediate People's Court of Xuzhou city heard that they set off in a minivan looking for victims to rob in November 2003 when a police officer signalled for then to pull over they opened fire.
When the van was eventually forced to a standstill, the mob assaulted the officer and he died on the spot. In southern China's Guangzhou city, meanwhile, six people were executed on January 18 for robbery and murder, the Information Times said. In one case, two men posing as police carried out a series of robberies between late 2000 and early 2001 during which they killed one person and raped a woman.
Other cases included three people murdering a businessman during a robbery in 2002 and a man killing a worker during a restaurant robbery in mid-2000, the newspaper said.
There was no mention of how they were executed. Elsewhere, four village officials were executed by lethal injection in the central province of Henan for an armed robbery spree spanning seven years from 1993, the China News Service said.
During the rampage they also posed as police, committing some 80 robberies and killing four people in the process.
They were executed on January 15, the agency said. In Hunan province, also in central China, two men were executed by firing squad on January 18 for a botched robbery at a railway station in Hengyang city during which a policeman was killed, the China Youth Daily reported.