A Chinese teenager has been sentenced to death for the “extremely cruel” murder of his classmate.

A Chinese court on Monday sentenced a teenage boy to life imprisonment for killing his classmate, concluding a case that sparked a national debate over the treatment of juvenile criminals.

Three suspects, all under the age of 14 at the time of the killings, were charged in April with bullying their 13-year-old classmate, surnamed Wang, over a long period before killing him in an abandoned greenhouse.

The gruesome details of the case, in which the killers reportedly attacked Wang with a shovel before burying his body, have drawn public attention to how the law treats juveniles accused of serious crimes.

A court in northern China’s Hebei Province convicted a boy named Zhang of premeditated murder.

Another boy named Lee was sentenced to 12 years in prison. The third boy, surnamed Ma, who the court found did not harm the victim, was sentenced to correctional education.

In 2021, China lowered the age of criminal responsibility from 14 to 12 in “special cases” such as causing death “by extremely cruel means.”

The Hebe case is believed to be the first in which an age limit has been implemented.

The prosecution said that since the defendants were “over 12 years old but under 14 years old at the time of committing the crime… they should bear criminal responsibility” according to Chinese law.

She added that the means of killing were “particularly cruel, and the conditions were particularly bad.”

Under Chinese law, murder is punishable by imprisonment or the death penalty.