Two members of an outlawed sect were executed for beating to death a woman at a McDonald’s restaurant after she refused to join their cult, a Chinese court said Monday.
Zhang Fan and her father Zhang Lidong were executed after being allowed to meet with relatives, Yantai Intermediate People’s Court in the eastern province of Shandong said online, without saying when.
They were convicted in October of beating a woman to death in a McDonald’s in the eastern province of Shandong, after she refused to give her telephone number as they were trying to recruit new members to the cult Quannengshen, or Almighty God.
Three other people present at the killing were handed life sentences.
On May 28, the group of five entered the restaurant and began to ask people for their phone numbers, as they sought out new recruits.
Many gave fake numbers, but the victim, 37, refused and asked them to leave. One of the cult members then shouted “She’s a devil,” prompting the others to attack her with their fists, chairs and a metal rod, according to footage shown during the trial.
The movement, also known as Dongfang Shandian, or Eastern Lightning, was founded in the early 1990s by Zhao Weishan, who fled to the United States after Beijing designated it a cult in 1995.
Loosely based on Christian scriptures, it preaches the imminent Second Coming and following apocalypse, and is estimated to have more than a million members.
GNA
