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BEIJING (AP) — A father and daughter have been executed in China for attacking and killing a woman who had refused to join their outlawed religious group during an altercation at a McDonald's outlet, a court said Monday.
Zhang Fan and her father, Zhang Lidong, were executed after the Supreme People's Court approved the death penalty, the Yantai Intermediate People's Court in the eastern province of Shandong said in a statement. It didn't say when the executions took place.
The two were convicted and sentenced in October along with three other women who received sentences from life imprisonment to seven years.
The court said the group had called the victim "an evil spirit" and a "demon" before beating her to death one evening last May while at a McDonald's restaurant. She had refused to give them her number so that they could recruit new members into the "All-powerful Spirit" group, which China considers an illegal cult. The anti-Communist sect believes Jesus was resurrected as a Chinese woman.
China's Supreme People's Court must review and approve all death sentences.
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