No Change in Death Sentence of Murderers of German FamilyThe death sentences handed down to the four men convicted of murdering German citizen Juren Hermann Pfrang and his family are not subject to change, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said Tuesday.He made the remarks at a regular press conference in response to a question on a report that the German government and relatives of the German victims petitioned for a lesser punishment for the four defendants. Zhu said as the case took place in China, it must be judged in accordance with Chinese law, which is exactly what Chinese judicial authorities have been following so far. He stressed the tragic case allows for no milder punishment, as the murders were brutal and have had serious consequences. The murderers must be sentenced to death, he said, otherwise the sentences will not be in the interests of protecting Chinese and foreign citizens in China. According to the public prosecutors of the Nanjing City People' s Procuratorate at a public hearing held two months ago, at midnight on April 1, the defendants broke into the Nanjing residence of the Pfrang family and fatally stabbed all its four members. Juren Hermann Pfrang was deputy general manager of Yaxing Benz Ltd., a Sino-German joint-venture bus manufacturer based in Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province, east China. The Intermediate People's Court in Nanjing, the provincial capital of Jiangsu, on July 14, gave the death penalty to the four defendants. |
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