TWO members of a cult group were sentenced to death and another to life imprisonment Saturday for beating a woman to death in a McDonald’s outlet in Shandong Province after they unsuccessfully tried to recruit her into their quannengshen (almighty god) cult.

    The Yantai Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Zhang Fan, 29, and her father Zhang Lidong, 55, to death and Lu Yingchun, 39, to life imprisonment. Lu was the only one to protest the verdict in court.

    Two others — a younger sister of Zhang Fan and a female friend of Zhang Lidong — were jailed for 10 and seven years, respectively.

    The court said the five people and a 12-year-old, who was tried separately, murdered the woman one evening in May in Zhaoyuan City after she refused to give them her number as they tried to recruit members for the quannengshen cult.

    Zhang Fan and Lu called the victim “an evil spirit” and a “demon” before the group beat her with a chair and mops and kicked and trampled on her.

    The group also forbade anyone in the fast-food restaurant from intervening, the court said, calling the murder “extremely cruel.”

    The quannengshen group, which originated in central Henan Province, believes that Jesus was resurrected as Yang Xiangbin, wife of the sect’s founder, Zhao Weishan, according to previous Xinhua reports.

    Zhao is also known as Xu Wenshan, Xinhua has said, adding that the couple fled to the United States in September 2000.

    The sect has been widely criticized for using rumors to confuse people and coercing others into the cult. In late October and early November 1998, numerous robberies and assaults connected with the cult were reported over 12 days in Henan’s Tanghe County, with victims’ limbs broken and ears cut off.

    (SD-Agencies)