Court hands down capital punishment

A former college student was sentenced to death in Taiwan yesterday for killing four people and wounding more than 20 others in a subway stabbing spree that shocked the island.

Cheng Chieh, 22, will face a firing squad after he was convicted on four counts of murder and 22 counts of attempted murder for the carnage in May last year, the first fatal attack on Taipei's subway system since it launched in 1996.

"The judges sentenced Cheng to death as his means were brutal and his crimes were severe while he had shown no remorse," Lien Yu-chun, a spokeswoman for the New Taipei district court, told AFP.

A court statement said that Cheng's crimes "angered gods and men" and that the sentence would safeguard society.