Two brothers from a south Chinese city were given death penalties for crimes including operating an organized crime ring and causing two deaths.

The Intermediate People's Court of Guangzhou City, the provincial capital of Guangdong Province, handed down the sentences on Wednesday in a first-instance trial.

The court heard that starting July 2005, 30-year-old Feng Zhixi, a native of Guangzhou on parole, and his younger brother Feng Zhizhao, an ex-convict, whipped together a score of jobless people to form an organization called Black Dragon Society.

Through means such as extortion and false promises, the Feng brothers led the Society to a membership of 100, many of whom were middle school students in the city.

Members of the organized crime ring often haunted venues of entertainment in Baiyun district of Guangzhou to stir up trouble and then to levy protection fees, or blackmail others by taking advantage of negotiating disputes on their behalf.

In November 2005, the Feng brothers led members of their organized crime ring to besiege the village affairs committee of Dagangling Village in Baiyun district and force the committee leader to write down a pledge that all bidding activities for construction businesses in the village be cancelled, and such businesses could only be done by engineering teams owned by the Feng brothers. The two brothers obtained 180,000 yuan (about 25,714 US dollars) for building roads and drainage works in the village.

On June 4, 2006, the Feng brothers led people to beat two migrant workers from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region to death, suspecting that the latter two had stolen a DVD player from the headquarters of the Society.

The organized crime ring soon fell apart after another member who participated in the beatings turned himself in to the police.

The Feng brothers and other organized crime ring members were also guilty of other acts of robbery, and illegal possession of weaponry.

The court found Feng Zhixi was guilty of five counts of crime, including murder, leading and operating the organized crime ring, and forced trading and sentenced him to death, plus a deprivation of political rights for life.

Feng Zhizhao, 25, who was also found guilty of five counts of crime, was sentenced to death but with two-year's reprieve. He was deprived of his political rights for life and all his personal property.

Twelve other key members on the same organized crime ring were also sentenced to jail terms ranging from three years to life imprisonment.

It is not immediately known whether the Feng brothers would appeal or not.

(Xinhua News Agency September 12, 2008)