China executes couple who flung two toddlers to their death

China has executed a couple who fatally threw two children out of the window of an apartment building.

Zhang Bo – the father of the children – and Ye Chengchen were previously found guilty of killing the two-year-old girl and one-year-old boy in 2020.

Zhang had began an affair with Ye and later divorced his wife and began conspiring to kill his children.

China’s Supreme Court had called the couples’ motives “extremely malicious”, highlighting their “cruel methods”.

The couple were executed in the south-western city of Chongqing on Wednesday. It is not clear how the execution was carried out, though death sentences in China are mostly carried out by lethal injection or a firing squad.

Zhang had begun an “inappropriate” relationship with Ye without informing her of his marital or parental status, but Ye continued to see him after knowing the truth, the court said.

Ye repeatedly threatened Zhang to carry out the murders, which they conspired to stage as an accidental fall, the court heard. On 2 November 2020, Zhang threw his kids out of the window of his apartment from the 15th floor.

News of their execution quickly began trending on Chinese social media site Weibo, drawing hundreds of millions of views.

“They totally deserve it for their crime,” said one Weibo comment liked more than 30 thousand times reads.

“Hope the kids only have peace and joy in their next life” another comment says.

Chen Meilin, the mother of the two children, said on Thursday night that “a nightmare that tortured our family for more than three years has finally disappeared”.