Chinese men face life sentences for 'bodies in suitcase' murders

Lu Yao Jia and Ji Peng were both in Yorkshire on extended student visas at the time they targeted fellow Chinese nationals Jin Xue, 38 and his wife Li Xie, 35.

Both victims had entered the country illegally and were running the Timboo takeaway in Fairfield Road, Bramley, Leeds, until their sudden disappearance on July 24 last year.

Worried friends and relatives called in the police because they did not believe claims they had sold their business to another man, Liang Zhang.

In the early hours of Monday, July 27 the bodies of the missing couple were found, tightly bound with tape over their eyes and mouths, in suitcases in the boot of Ji Peng's Ford Mondeo near the address where he and Jia lived in Kensington Way, Leeds.

Mr Xue had been stabbed in the neck, his jugular vein pierced and causing major blood loss.

The exact cause of wife's death could not be established but she had a cord around her neck and had suffered pressure to her neck. A pathologist told Leeds Crown Court she could also not rule out dry drowning in the woman's case, caused by shock from cold water at the back of the throat, after one defendant said he had been told her head was put in a bucket.

Jia, 20 and Peng, 25, admitted kidnapping the couple and yesterday they were both unanimously found guilty by a jury of murdering Jin Xue and Li Xie.

Zhang, who claimed to staff at the Timboo after the deaths he had legitimately bought the takeaway, flew back to China before the bodies were found. He is still being sought by police.

The jury heard Jin Xue entered the UK illegally in August 1997 and was refused applications to stay. The immigration authorities lost touch with him and he was recorded as an absconder, not entitled to work in the UK.

His wife told immigration officers she arrived in the summer of 2006 after hiding on a ferry. She was given temporary admission but served with a notice she was liable for removal and also not entitled to work

Tom Bayliss QC, prosecuting, told the jury Zhang and the others believed that because their victims did not have legal status to remain in the UK the authorities would have no interest in their disappearance, enabling Zhang to claim ownership of the takeaway.

Peng entered the UK in 2004 to study accounting and finance at Leeds Metropolitan University and later studied International Business management at Bradford University. He was granted extensions to his visa.

Jia had also been granted a visa to study at Leeds Metropolitan University which was later extended until this year.

He first came into contact with Jin Xue when he bought a share in a takeaway in Barnsley from him. He told the jury he was then promised by Zhang a share of the profits in the Timboo if he helped him kidnap the couple, whom he said owed money to an underworld criminal.

Peng drove them to a house in Holborn Grove, Leeds where they were attacked and bound, before being moved in the suitcases to Kensington Way.

Jia claimed he left the couple alive with the friend of Zhang and returned to be told they were dead. He said he thought they would only be taken away to work off their debt.

Peng claimed in evidence he understood it was a friend of Jia's who was responsible for the deaths. Zhang had got them to buy petrol intending to burn the bodies.