Four foreigners were paraded in ropes and chains on Chinese state television before being taken away and executed for the murder of 13 Chinese fishermen on the Mekong River in 2011.
One of the men was Naw Kham, a Burmese drug lord known as “The Godfather” who operated in the Golden Triangle of Thailand, Laos and Burma. The others, executed by lethal injection, were Hsang Kham from Thailand, Yi Lai, who is stateless, and Zha Xika from Laos, the Xinhua news agency reported.
The men were put to death in Kunming, Yunnan province. CCTV News showed live footage of them being taken to the execution site, but stopped short of showing the executions. This is the first time in many years such footage has been shown on Chinese TV.
Some Chinese internet users said the TV show was insensitive and harked back to the execution rallies once held in China.
Mr Kham and his gang colluded with Thai soldiers in an attack on two Chinese cargo ships, the Hua Ping and Yu Xing 8, in October 2011 on the Mekong River. Thirteen sailors were killed.
The murder was one of the deadliest assaults on Chinese nationals overseas in modern times.
