Chinese buses help save on execution expenses

Amnesty International reports how converted buses are being increasingly used as mobile death chambers to execute prisoners by lethal injection

The use of lethal injection as a method of execution is becoming increasingly popular among provincial authorities in China. In January 2003 a journalist and a group of "several dozen" court officers from all prefectures, cities and counties in Gansu province were taken by officials of the provincial high court to an unnamed detention centre near Lanzhou to attend a lecture and then witness the execution by lethal injection of 11 convicted prisoners. This was reportedly the largest group of prisoners to be executed by lethal injection on one single occasion since the method was introduced in Lanzhou.

Execution by lethal injection as an alternative to the firing squad was introduced in China in the revised Criminal Procedure Law in 1997 and was first used on an experimental basis in Yunnan province. The current "strike hard" anti-crime campaign, launched in 2001, under which defendants are often sentenced to death for crimes which at other times are punishable by imprisonment, has led to a rise in executions. During 2001 and 2002 Amnesty International recorded more than 5,900 death sentences and more than 3,500 executions in China, although the true figures were believed to be much higher.

In an effort to improve cost-efficiency, Chinese provincial authorities are beginning to introduce so-called mobile execution vans. These are intended to replace the traditional method of execution by firing squad in which prisoners are taken to an execution ground and made to kneel with hands cuffed before being shot in the head. Officials in Yunnan province explained that only four people are required to carry out the execution in the mobile vans: the executioner, one member of the court, one official from the procuratorate and one forensic doctor.

Eighteen mobile executions vans, converted 24-seater buses, are being distributed to all intermediate courts and one high court in Yunnan province. The windowless execution chamber at the back contains a metal bed on which the prisoner is strapped down. Once the needle is attached by the doctor, an act which breaches international medical ethics, a police officer presses a button and an automatic syringe inserts the lethal drug into the prisoner's vein. The execution can be watched on a video monitor next to the driver's seat and can be recorded if required.

The newspaper Beijing Today reported that use of the vans was approved by the legal authorities in Yunnan province on 6 March. Later that same day, two farmers, Liu Huafu, aged 21, and Zhou Chaojie, aged 25, who had been convicted of drug trafficking, were executed by lethal injection in a mobile execution van. Zhao Shijie, president of the Yunnan Provincial High Court, was quoted as praising the new system: "The use of lethal injection shows that China's death penalty system is becoming more civilized and humane." However, members of China's legal community have voiced their concerns that it will only lead to an increase in the use of the death penalty.

Note: This article was published by JUST Response on July 7 2003. It first appeared in the May 2003 issue of "The Wire" by Amnesty International under the title "Chinese use mobile death vans to execute prisoners". We express our grateful acknowledgement to Amnesty International.

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