A man was jailed for a minimum of 33 years on Tuesday for the brutal double murders of two Chinese graduates in Britain last year linked to an Internet betting scam.
Guang Hui Cao, 31, was convicted of killing Xi Zhou and Zhen Xing Yang, both aged 25, in Newcastle in August.
They had been beaten with heavy objects while Zhou was also suffocated by having cloth rammed into her mouth and their bodies were found two days later.
Prosecutors at Newcastle Crown Court in northeast England said the victims were involved in an Internet betting operation which saw £233,690 (US$342,000) pass through the couple’s bank accounts in three years.
Yang would send information from live football matches in Britain to gamblers in China who could capitalize on a TV time delay of several seconds to make money by betting on events when they already knew the outcome.
He also supplied fake education certificates to Chinese students who wanted to enroll on courses in Britain, the court heard.
Sentencing Cao, judge Alan Wilkie said: “I am satisfied that this was an execution carried out against two young people who had become involved in organized criminal activities and involved in dishonest betting and the provision of bogus documentation.”
“In some way, they have crossed those who were involved in organizing these criminal activities and were punished by them,” he said.
Outside court, Detective Superintendent Steve Wade, who led the murder investigation, said the deaths were “certainly some of the most brutal murders I have ever dealt with.”
The killer, a restaurant worker, contacted the couple saying he wanted to sub-let a room in their flat. After murdering them, he fled with laptop computers and mobile phones.
Cao claimed he had been blackmailed into unwittingly helping set up the couple’s deaths and that he was tied up and locked in the bathroom at their house when they were killed.
As he was taken to prison, he shouted at the jurors in Mandarin: “You’ve killed me. You’re murdering me.”
He was then forcibly dragged from the dock.
The court heard that Yang had been hit in the face with a hammer and his throat was slashed.
Zhou was found lying face down on a bed. Her wrists were bound with tape and she had been hit over the head with a heavy weapon, possibly a hammer.
Toweling was stuffed into her mouth, which had been taped shut, and she suffocated about 90 minutes after the ordeal began.
Yang arrived in Britain in 2003, with his girlfriend coming two years later. They have been buried together in China.
Zhou’s father, Sanbao Zhou, said he felt “as if the sky had fallen on us” when he heard about his daughter’s death.
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