The group was approaching fellow diners at a McDonald's restaurant in an eastern Chinese city on a recent Wednesday night, asking for their cellphone numbers, when one woman refused.
What happened next, captured by terrified onlookers on their cellphone cameras and later replayed in news reports, would shock the Chinese public and trigger an official crackdown on what Beijing has characterized as a dangerous doomsday "cult."
A brutal killing in a McDonald’s in China which cast a spotlight on a banned religious movement that believes a Chinese woman is the second coming of Christ.
"Go to hell, demon," one of the accused, Zhang Lidong, yelled as he beat the woman with a steel mop handle, telling her she would "never come back in the next reincarnation."
Other members of the group threatened diners that they would kill anyone who intervened, reported Chinese state media.
By the time police arrived at the fast food outlet in the city of Zhaoyuan, in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong, they found the victim, a 37-year-old mother named Wu Shuoyan, lying in a pool of blood.
Zhang was kicking and stomping her while a boy beat her with the mop handle, state media reported; within the hour, she was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
Five adults have been charged, along with a minor, with murder over the May 28 attack -- Zhang Lidong, Zhang Fan, Lyu Yingchun, Zhang Hang, Zhang Qiaolian. They are all members of the Church of Almighty God ("Quannengshen"), Zhaoyuan police said in a statement.
State television subsequently broadcast an interview with Zhang Lidong in his cell, in which he confessed to the killing but expressed no remorse.
"She was a demon," he said, telling the interviewer that he and his co-accused were members of the church. "She was an evil spirit."
Authorities said the accused were likely gathering the phone numbers to find potential new recruits when Wu's refusal angered them, state media reported.
Struggle with the 'great red dragon'
Also known as Eastern Lightning ("Dongfang Shandian"), the group preaches that Christ has been reincarnated as a woman from central China, and that the righteous are engaged in an apocalyptic struggle against China's Communist Party -- which they refer to as the "great red dragon."
0 comments:
Post a Comment