Chinese convicted of killing Germans

A court in China has convicted four peasants of hacking a German family to death in a botched robbery.

All four men confessed to the murders on 2 April of Jurgen Pfrang, an executive with the German car-maker Daimler-Benz, his wife and two children.

The men - aged 18 to 23 and unemployed - have not yet been sentenced, but the court in Nanjing is expected to order their execution.

Lawyers for the victims' relatives said they had no proof to suggest the murders were related to Mr Pfrang's position as the deputy general manager at the high-profile Yaxing-Benz joint venture factory in Yangzhou, near Nanjing.

The crime - said to be one of the worst acts of violence against foreigners in modern China - shocked the expatriate community.

The country is regarded as relatively safe for foreigners.

Chinese authorities have voiced concern about the effects on foreign investment.

Watermelon knives

During the two-day trial, defendant Zhong Weiyang described how the four former schoolmates had bought long watermelon knives and initially planned to rob a bank and a taxi driver.

He said they entered Mr Pfrang's villa through an unlocked window on the second floor.

When Mr Pfrang entered the room, one of the men attacked him with a knife and began hacking him.

Mr Pfrang's wife Petra and his 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son then emerged and they were also stabbed repeatedly.

Security guards stopped the men as they left the villa and called the police.

All four accused denied contact with anyone working in the Yangzhou plant.

A lawyer for the victims' relatives said Mr Pfrang's computer was shipped to relatives in Germany with its hard drive erased.

He also said an important meeting was due to be held at the plant the week after the murders.

However, German officials in China have rejected the idea of a contract killing.