American fatally stabbed in Beijing; suspect held

BEIJING – A 62-year-old American man was stabbed to death in downtown Beijing and a suspect has been caught, city police said.

The Beijing Public Security Bureau said in a statement posted on its official microblog late Wednesday that Howard Thomas Mills was attacked near the entrance to a narrow alleyway in the city's Xicheng district.

Mills arrived in China on July 3, the statement said.

The U.S. Embassy said Thursday it was aware of the media reports but could not comment due to privacy issues.

The alleged attacker, a 35-year-old man named An Libo who had arrived in the capital earlier that day by train from his hometown in northeastern China's Heilongjiang province, was nabbed by police who were patrolling near the scene, the Chinese statement said.

An is believed to suffer from a mental disorder and had attacked and robbed people in Shanghai in January before being sent back to his hometown, police said without providing other details.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Mills was a spouse of a Procter & Gamble employee and that Chinese authorities contacted the company to notify it that Mills had been killed in Beijing.

Online property records show that a Howard T. Mills and Sue A. Mills own a home in Indian Hill, a community a few miles northeast of Cincinnati in the U.S. state of Ohio, the newspaper said.