The trial of Ma Jiajue, a fourth-year Yunnan University student who allegedly killed four of his schoolmates in February, began yesterday at the Kunming Intermediate People’s Court in southwest China’s Yunnan Province. The court did not render a verdict yesterday.

The youth of the defendant and the victims in the case has drawn nationwide attention. Experts and laymen alike are trying to understand how a college student could bludgeon his schoolmates to death.

Ma’s parents and the families of the four victims have all arrived in Kunming, the provincial capital.

One victim’s parents said they would give up demands for compensation, but parents of the other three victims have asked for 820,000 yuan (US$99,000).

The four victims were found in a dormitory in Yunnan University on February 23, all with injuries consistent with a blunt metal object. Ma, who is from a poor family in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, was later listed as the chief suspect.

He was finally captured on March 15 in Sanya, south China’s Hainan Province.

(China Daily April 23, 2004)