For the first time, a Chinese court has sentenced to death a German citizen, who was convicted in 2011 of murdering his ex-girlfriend and her new partner with a hammer and knife in the south-eastern Chinese city of Xiamen, Fujian.
The 36-year-old man, who was identified as “Philipp B” in the German press (but as “Phillip Martin” on What’s On Xiamen at the time of the killings), was found guilty of murdering his ex-girlfriend “Jennifer M” (29), a Venezuelan national, and her partner, a German citizen identified as “Jörn-Christian H” (39).
The couple were killed in an alley near Xiamen’s upscale Marco Polo Hotel around 10pm on June 6, 2010; they left behind a young son. Immediately after the murders, Philipp B failed in an attempt to commit suicide by cutting arteries in his leg.
According to a report in Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung, Philipp B, originally from Teisendorf in the southern German state of Bavaria, met the victim Jennifer M while studying sinology at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany. They separated in 2006, with Jennifer M moving to Xiamen the following year.
The defendant’s lawyer, Chen Liqun, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur that his client has not decided whether to file an appeal. If the sentence is upheld on appeal by the Fujian Province High People’s Court, China’s Supreme People’s Court would still have final approval of the death penalty.
At a press conference in Berlin on Wednesday, the German Foreigner Ministry’s spokesman Martin Schäfer said the German government would do “everything in its power” to prevent the execution from being carried out. “I can assure you that the federal government will do everything in its power to work towards preventing or changing the sentence,” he said. The death penalty has long been abolished in Germany.
While this is the first case of a German being sentenced to death in China, he is not the first foreigner to be so. According to a report earlier this month about two South Koreans being executed in China; one Brit, five Japanese, five Filipinos and one Pakistani have been put to death for drug offenses since 2009.
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