CHINA EXECUTES PETITIONER WHO KILLED POLICE OFFICER BRINGING HIM HOME

Authorities in the central Chinese province of Henan have executed a petitioner for killing a police officer who was forcibly escorting him home from a petitioning trip in the Chinese capital, Radio Free Asia reported on 20 December 2018.
Veteran activist Xu Youchen, 58, was executed on Nov. 15 after the China Supreme People’s Court approved his death sentence the month before.
Xu and his wife Zhang Xiaoyu were initially both detained on suspicion of killing the police officer on July 17, 2014 as they were being escorted home from Beijing to prevent them from complaining about the local government.
The couple were both formally charged with intentional homicide on Aug. 2, but Zhang's charges were later changed to "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," for which she received a three-year jail term on Dec. 12, 2016.
Xu was sentenced to death for the killing of a police officer on the same day by the Sanmenxia Intermediate People's Court in Henan.