A Chinese court has sentenced a 52-year-old man to death for stabbing three people, one fatally, in Suzhou near Shanghai in June last year.

A Japanese woman and her child sustained injuries in the incident that occurred as a Japanese school bus arrived at a stop, while a female Chinese bus attendant died of stab wounds.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry said the court in Suzhou handed the death penalty to the assailant, an unemployed man named Zhou Jiasheng, for intentional murder.

The court said in the ruling on January 23 that capital punishment is warranted as the action of killing and injuring three people, including a child, out of despair over financial debts was extremely heinous, with severe social repercussions.

The ruling did not mention whether the attack was aimed at Japanese nationals or why it took place near a Japanese school.

In another stabbing incident in September last year, a 10-year-old Japanese boy was killed in Shenzhen.

A man in his 40s has been indicted, and his trial’s first hearing took place in the southern Chinese city on January 24.