Chen Fuzhao was a licensed assistant physician in Cangnan County, a coastal county of Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province. Between May 25 and June 27, 2003, sixteen people died in the town of Longgang in the county: fifteen in one group of deaths and one woman in a separate incident. Chen was taken in by police on July 1, 2003, and the Wenzhou Intermediate People's Court sentenced him to death on December 30, 2003. He was executed on June 18, 2004.
Chen worked as a licensed assistant physician in Cangnan County, in the south of Zhejiang Province. His date of birth, schooling and family background are not on record. The court found that he had taken up the Falun Gong practice in 1996. Falun Gong representatives in Hong Kong denied that he was a practitioner.
The deaths took place between May 25 and June 27, 2003, in Longgang, a town in Cangnan County. Fifteen people died in one group of deaths, and a sixteenth, a woman, died in a separate incident. The names of the dead and of their families are not on record. The court's total is sixteen.
Police questioned Chen on July 1, 2003. The court found that he admitted the killings in full.
The trial took place in Wenzhou on December 18, 2003, and the court gave its judgment on the afternoon of December 30. The Wenzhou Intermediate People's Court, sitting at first instance, found him guilty of intentional homicide and of a second offense under the criminal law. It sentenced him to death on each count, with deprivation of political rights for life, and ordered one sentence of death to be carried out.
The court tied the killings to his belief in Falun Gong and to a wish to increase his spiritual strength. That attribution was disputed: Falun Gong representatives in Hong Kong said he was not a practitioner. The trial was heard with little public notice, and members of the public could not obtain seats. After the verdict Chen's family said they would appeal.
Chen was executed on June 18, 2004, on an order issued by the president of the Zhejiang Higher People's Court. A second-instance hearing is not on record.
The count: sixteen is the court's figure; whether a seventeenth death belongs to the case is not settled.
His link to Falun Gong: the court found it, and representatives of the movement denied it. A claim that he was mentally ill, made by a Falun Gong-affiliated group, is not part of the court's judgment.
1996: begins practicing Falun Gong, as the court found.
May 25 to June 27, 2003: sixteen people die in Longgang, Cangnan County.
July 1, 2003: police take Chen in for questioning.
December 18, 2003: trial in Wenzhou.
December 30, 2003: Wenzhou Intermediate People's Court sentences him to death on each count.
June 18, 2004: executed.