China court upholds death sentence to man, life term to wife

A court in China has upheld the death penalty to a man for rape and murder of a 17-year-old girl and life term in jail to his wife for abetting the crime.
The Higher People's Court of Heilongjiang rejected the couple's appeals and upheld the penalties meted out by a lower court in June, which sentenced Bai Yunjiang to death and his wife Tan Beibei to life imprisonment.
On July 24, 2013, Tan who was pregnant at the time lured the girl, identified as Hu, to her home by pretending to have pregnancy complications.
The couple then gave the teenager a yoghurt drink spiked with a sedative and Bai attempted to rape her.

According to the court, the sexual assault was unsuccessful but the couple killed the girl anyway and buried her body.
Tan said her husband was aware that she had several extra marital affairs and the idea to acquire a young girl for her husband's pleasure had emerged out of guilt.
The court also found the couple had previously failed in two such assaults -- one was the attempted rape of one of their daughter's classmates in June last year and the other was the attempted robbery and murder of one of Bai's former classmates in mid July last year, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The higher court affirmed the facts and evidence of the first trial and declared the judgment and sentencing appropriate.