(MENAFN- Arab News) TAIPEI: A former college student was sentenced to death in Taiwan on Friday for killing four people and wounding more than 20 others in a subway stabbing spree on a Taipei commuter train last year that shocked the island.

Cheng Chieh 22 will face a firing squad after he was convicted on four counts of murder and 22 counts of attempted murder for the carnage in May last year the first fatal attack on Taipei's subway system since it launched in 1996.

Shortly before rush hour on May 21 Cheng Chieh used a 10-cm (3-inch) knife in a train car traveling along the metro system's longest stretch between two stations to slash passengers in the chest and stomach in some cases as they slept the court said. The apparently random attack also left 22 injured.

Spokeswoman Lien Yu-chyun said the New Taipei City district court considered 'the vicious nature of the method that the defendant ... used to kill to be significant.' She cited public outrage over the case and said that Cheng 21 would be 'hard to reform.'

Before the attack Cheng posted a message on his Facebook page saying he 'wanted to do something big.' He told authorities later that the stabbings felt 'like slicing tofu' according to local news reports. Ahead of the verdict Taiwan's Apple Daily newspaper quoted him as saying that he would not mind receiving a death sentence. He has the right to appeal.

People are likely to support Cheng's sentence with some considering him 'a monster that rose from hell' said Taiwan book publisher and historian Yang Lian-fu.