Shadeed Abdulmateen, who taught at the Ningbo University of Technology, was charged with the intentional homicide of a 21-year-old Chinese woman surnamed Chen, according to Chinese state media.
After a disagreement over their breakup in June 2019, Abdulmateen arranged to meet and talk with Chen at a bus stop in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, before killing her with a “folding knife,” said the Ningbo Intermediate People’s Court in its verdict.
The court held that the defendant’s “premeditated revenge killing, stabbing and cutting Chen’s face and neck several times, resulting in Chen’s death, was motivated by vile motives, resolute intent and cruel means, and the circumstances of the crime were particularly bad and the consequences particularly serious, and should be punished according to law,” according to public broadcaster CCTV.
The court said it had provided Abdulmateen with his rights to defense, including access to a translator and consular visits, according to state-run tabloid the Global Times.
A spokesperson from the United States Embassy in Beijing said it was aware of a court decision related to a US citizen in China, and that officials were “monitoring the situation,” but would not comment further due to privacy considerations.
China is the world’s top executioner, according to Amnesty International, sentencing thousands to death every year. China does not disclose execution numbers.
Over the past decade, people from Uganda, South Korea, Japan and Kenya have received death sentences for drug crimes. In 2016, the Nigerian senate reportedly heard that 120 of its citizens were on death row in China. And in 2019, China handed down a death sentence to a Canadian citizen accused of smuggling drugs, sending shockwaves around the world.