[FloareTraurne]

Asia
Home > Breaking News > Asia > Story
Dec 13, 2009

Mass-murder suspect caught



Villagers stand amid the debris of burned houses after Liu Aibing killed 12 and injured two at a village in Anhua, Hunan province. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

BEIJING - POLICE in central China captured Sunday a man suspected of killing 12 people, including his father and relatives, and torching up to six homes in a revenge attack, an official and media said. 'The suspect was captured early this morning... and has been taken away by police,' a spokesman for the Gaoming county government in Hunan province told AFP by phone. 'Twelve people were killed, six homes were destroyed by fire. The victims included his father. The others were all his relatives spanning five generations.' The killings took place Saturday, he said. The suspect was identified as Liu Aibing, 34, a migrant worker with a history of mental illness, the Hunan government news site Hongwang reported. Liu had recently returned from southern China's Guangdong province where he had sought employment, it said. Press reports said Liu was seeking revenge on his family for the mistreatment of his mother or was unhappy with how a relative was managing his father's forest patch in the remote mountains of Hunan. According to local villagers, Liu had no history of mental illness, Xinhua said. By Saturday night, up to 1,000 special police and paramilitary troops had cornered Liu on a hilltop near Yinshanpai village, where the killings took place, reports said. Two people were also seriously injured in the rampage and were being treated in hospital, reports said. -- AFP