BEIJING: A Chinese court has sentenced to death two members of a fringe religious group for beating a woman to death at a McDonald’s restaurant, reportedly after she rebuf­fed their attempts to recruit her.

Defendants Zhang Fan and Zhang Lidong were found guilty of intentional homicide and of “using an evil cult organisation to undermine the law”, according to a statement posted online on Saturday by the Yantai Intermediate People’s Court in east China’s Shandong province. It was not known if the pair planned to appeal the sentences.

A third defendant, Lu Yingchun, was sentenced to life in prison. Two others — Zhang Hang and Zhang Qiao — were sentenced to 10 and seven years, respectively.

The five are all members of a cult called Quannengshen, the court said, adding that they attacked the woman, surnamed Wu, in May after she refused to give them her phone number.

The group, whose name can be translated as Church of Almighty God, believe that Jesus has been reincarnated as a Chinese woman and refer to the Communist Party as the “great red dragon”. It was outlawed by the government in the mid-1990s.

Published in Dawn, October 12th, 2014