The No 2 Intermediate People's Court of Chongqing convicted...

The No 2 Intermediate People's Court of Chongqing convicted six men of murdering and dismembering six people in the city's Wanzhou area. The slaying spree began in 1992 and ended in 2002. Cui Bingcheng and Hu Yunshuang were sentenced to death, and Lu Dingsheng and Zheng Jiangjun were jailed for life. Zhou Guangyong was sentenced to 11 years and He Xingsheng five. It was reported that on the night of March 29, 1992, in an attempted robbery, Cui repeatedly hit Wen Qiqing, a gatekeeper at a cigarette sales company, on the head with a hammer. Wen died the next morning. In June 2001 after breaking up with his girlfriend, Hu reportedly asked his friend, Tan Xiaolin, to persuade her not to abandon him. However, Hu thought Tan had said bad things about him to his girlfriend and two months later, Hu and Cui kidnapped Tan, forcing him to give up the code number of his bank book. After Cui withdrew 6,500 yuan (US$780), they strangled Tan and dismembered his body, the Shanghai Daily reported. On October 16, 2001, Cui, his friend Xia Yonggui, and Hu kidnapped Yang Daocui, who was playing cards with them, forcing her to give them her credit-card number. The next day, they withdrew 9,600 yuan from Yang's bank account, strangled her and dis-membered her body, the report said. On 1 March, 2002 Xia reportedly invited another woman to play cards with him but killed her and dismembered her body. Soon after, Xia, Hu and Cui also robbed a businessman, an acquaintance of Xia, before killing and dismembering him. And finally, late in March 2002, Hu and Cui killed Xia fearing the latter would expose the crime, the report added.