Death sentence for three gang leaders upheld
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A higher court in southwest China's Yunnan province has upheld the death penalty for three out of four gang leaders who appealed against a lower court's ruling last year.
The Yunnan Provincial Higher Court showed leniency to Yang Guoying, the fourth convicted gang leader, whose sentence was changed to death with a two-year reprieve.
Under Chinese law, Yang's sentence will likely to be commuted to life imprisonment after two years, if he does not commit any offences while in jail.
The court said in a statement it had evidence that Yang had been manipulated by the other three, namely the gang leader Jiang Jiatian, his mistress Yang Jufen and Xie Mingxiang, another core member of the ring, to join and help run the 41-strong criminal gang.
Yang Guoying was Yang Jufen's father.
He and the other three were sentenced to death by the Intermediate People's Court in Kunming in December, on conviction of drug trafficking, racketeering, fraud and selling counterfeit currency.
Li Wencai, a woman who played a leading role in the gang's drug trafficking, received the death penalty with a two-year reprieve.
The other 36 members of the gang received jail terms ranging from 18 months to life.
The higher court upheld most of the rulings.
Jiang Jiatian, 56, made a fortune from drug trafficking in the mid 1990s and had invested the takings in at least 10 teahouses, Internet cafes and hotels in Kunming.
Almost all his businesses turned out to be dens for prostitution, extortion, racketeering, and sales of drugs and counterfeit banknotes, a court spokesman said.
He said Jiang had involved relatives and friends in his gang. Most of them were jobless, and some were former criminals.
The gang had disrupted the social order in at least three villages in the suburbs of Kunming, and many villagers wrote to local governments complaining they felt unsafe.
Some said they were forced to pay up to 1,000 yuan (147 U.S. dollars) for a kettle of tea at Jiang's teahouses, under threat of violence.
Some also complained they were given were counterfeit banknotes in change, and were beaten up when they protested.
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