Three children are facing the death penalty after they beat their 13-year-old classmate to death in northern China’s Hebei province last month.

The three assailants, all under age 14, were accused of bullying their classmate, named only as Wang, over a long period before killing him.

“He was beaten alive and his body was disfigured beyond recognition.

“I hope the government will be fair, open and just, punish them severely, and that the killers will pay with their lives,” Wang’s father wrote on Douyin, a Chinese social media platform.

In the recorded moments before the 13-year-old boy’s death, surveillance cameras showed him sitting on a scooter, surrounded by three classmates on March 10. An hour later, his phone reportedly went dead, kicking off a search by relatives.

The boy was discovered dead by the police the next day.

He was discovered beneath a tarp in an abandoned vegetable greenhouse.

In a statement on March 17, they said the boy had been killed on March 10 and that the suspects were detained the following day.

A police investigator told state broadcaster CCTV on March 18 that the crime had been premeditated, with the suspects digging out the pit twice, once the day before and again the day of the killing.

Wang’s relatives and their attorney said in interviews with Chinese media and posts on social media that the boy had long been a victim of bullying, and was forced to give money to one of his classmates before he was killed.

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