In Chinese court, mother gets five years for killing sons

BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese court has sentenced a mother to what it calls a “lenient sentence” of five years in jail for murdering her paralyzed twin sons. The state-run China Daily newspaper reported Wednesday that 37-year-old Han Qunfeng gave her sons water laced with sleeping pills before drowning them in a bathtub in November. The 13-year-olds had been born prematurely and had cerebral palsy. An official from the court in southern China’s Guangdong province says Han was sentenced Tuesday. She says the judge believes Han committed the crime when she was depressed. “By considering the crime has caused only a relatively small harm to the society, the judge has given her a lenient sentence,” said the court official, who only gave her surname, Liao.