TOKYO (Kyodo) -- A Chinese man convicted of killing a Chinese woman and injuring two Japanese nationals in a knife attack at a school bus stop near Shanghai last year was executed, a Japanese government source said Thursday.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry told the Japanese Embassy in Beijing on Wednesday that the man had been executed, according to the source.

Zhou Jiasheng stabbed a Japanese mother and her child and killed Chinese bus attendant, Hu Youping, who came to their assistance, at the Japanese school bus stop in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, in June. A court in Suzhou sentenced Zhou to death in January.

Zhou was "debt-ridden" and did not want to continue living, according to a Japanese government official who cited the court ruling.

While there was speculation that he may have targeted Japanese nationals, the Suzhou Intermediate People's Court made no mention of Japan when it issued the ruling.

The case, followed by another fatal stabbing by a Chinese man of a Japanese schoolboy in the southern city of Shenzhen in September, has attracted considerable attention in Japan, fueling safety concerns among its nationals living in China.

The assailant in the Shenzhen case was also sentenced to death in January.