The Jinling Royal Garden lakeside development in Nanjing is typical of the new compounds in which foreign business executives live in modern China. It has manicured lawns, a tennis court, Graeco-Roman statues, a recreation hall and satellite television.
China has long been regarded as a safe place for foreigners, and the villas were protected by a fashionable metal railing and a few security guards, rather than a high wall as in old-style compounds. But on April 2nd a German businessman and his family were slaughtered in their villa there, and the horrifying details, recounted in a Nanjing court yesterday, have sent a chill through China's expatriate community. According to the defendant, Zhong Weiyang, he and three other peasants, Liu Guangyuan, Zhang Eryang and Ding Shanyang, all aged 18 to 23, bought knives and set out to steal money in Nanjing. They went to the lakeside villas where they heard rich people lived.
Just after midnight they jumped the perimeter fence and broke into the only villa not showing lights. It yielded little. They climbed along an overhang to the bedroom home next door of Mr Jurgen Pfrang, an executive with German car-maker Daimler Benz AG. Evidently hearing a noise, Mr Pfrang (51) went to investigate. When he switched on the light Liu began slashing him with his knife, Zhong said.
Mr Pfrang's 39-year-old wife, Petra, ran upstairs. She, too, was hacked and stabbed by the intruders. Their daughter, Sandra Melanie (14) and son, Thorsten Oliver (12) came out of their bedrooms and met a similar fate. All four died on the spot.
Zhong fled but the other three were trapped inside by security guards who heard screams. Chinese lawyers for the German relatives said they had circumstantial evidence the peasants were not robbers but hired killers, and that the murders were linked to changes the German executive was about to make at the YaxingBenz joint venture factory in nearby Yangzhou.
Police say all four confessed to the crime and German officials played down the idea of a contract killing. In court, Zhong said they had no idea foreigners lived in the villa. Asked why they did not flee, Liu replied: "We were too scared to move - we were nervous, standing in blood".
Adding to the new apprehensions of foreigners, a British backpacker was found stabbed to death on Sunday in west Sichuan province. Ms Shirine Harburn (30), from Crawley, west Sussex, was stabbed 12 times after setting off alone for a day's trekking. She was reported missing by her boyfriend, Mr Colin Horsfield, with whom she was travelling. She had been robbed but there were no signs of sexual assault. Beijing is desperately concerned that the tragedies could affect inward investment. China is still regarded as safer than most other countries but the record may be changing as crime increases with higher unemployment.
A Russian traveller was killed in Beijing last year and in February a Chinese-American businessman died after being beaten in a Beijing karaoke bar. In the spring of 1998 an American engineer and a British businessman were killed in separate incidents in other cities.