Four people convicted of abducting and selling 19 boys were
sentenced to death on Thursday by the Kunming Intermediate People's
Court in southwest China's Yunnan
Province.
Four others convicted of assisting the abductions were sentenced
to?eight to 13 years in prison.
According to court investigations, the four child traffickers
were identified as Li Bifang, Jiang Chengpu, Yuan Guiyuan and Liu
Weibing. The boys they abducted were all between two and six years
old from Fuhai, a town within the city of Kunming. The convicts
sold the children in Puning, a city of south China's Guangdong
Province. The crimes occurred between August 2003 and June
2004.
On June 6, 2004, while they were doing a transaction, Li Bifang
and Yuan Guiyuan were arrested by local public security
officers.
All 19 boys have since been returned to their parents.
(Xinhua News Agency May 20, 2005)