A MAN was sentenced to life in prison for stabbing a 19-year-old man to death in a street fight in Futian District last year, Chinese-language media reported Thursday.

    The 20-year-old man is among six young men, four of whom are underage, being prosecuted for intentional homicide in the fatal street fight in Huanqing Cultural Square in the Xiasha neighborhood March 19, 2016.

    The fight was started by a 14-year-old suspect, identified as Cai, who was also the youngest of the six defendants. The fight started because Cai discovered that a girl he fancied had been hanging out with the victim the night before.

    Cai was born in 2001 and was a high school student. Raised in a wealthy family, Cai was known in his hometown as a troublemaker. The other three minors involved in the case grew up together in the same hometown, according to the suspects’ statements.

    When they began the fight in the square in Xiasha, both parties hadn’t brought a knife or other weapons. However, the 20-year-old man became furious when his glasses were broken, so he purchased three fruit knives in a nearby shop and fatally stabbed the victim, surnamed Chen, in the abdomen.

    Chen was taken to Shenzhen Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, but was confirmed dead after an emergency treatment failed. Cai and his friends went back to Cai’s home to rest and were later arrested.

    The parents of one of the suspects made a public apology to the victim’s family on a local newspaper Dec. 16. Even though the suspect did not cause any injuries during the fight, he did accept his friend’s invitation to participate in the fight.

    In such cases where most of the suspects are minors, obtaining the victim’s family’s forgiveness can be grounds for a more lenient punishment, based on relevant rules.

    (Zhang Qian)