Chinese restaurant murders

Three other defendants received prison sentences ranging from four to 14 years for aggravated armed robbery and incitement to murder, the court in the northern town in Stade said. All five defendants are from Vietnam. One of the accused worked at the restaurant.

Judge Hans-Georg Kaemena said the brutal killings constituted "one of the worst crimes in Germany since the end of the Second World War."

Two-year-old the sole survivor

The killings took place shortly before midnight on February 4, 2007 at the Lin Yue restaurant in Sittensen, 50 kilometers southwest of Hamburg.

The British owner of the restaurant, 32-year old Danny Wing Hong Fan, his 28-year old wife, and five staff from Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong were shot dead in rapid succession. The only survivor was the two-year-old daughter of the owners.

Six of the victims - three men and three women - died at the scene while another man died from his gunshot wounds the next day. Some of the victims had been tied up before they were killed with a single gunshot to the head.

The gory scene was discovered early in the morning on Feb. 5 by the husband of a waitress who had arrived to pick up his wife.

Police evidence included photos showing the bloodied walls and floors of the restaurant, with slain bodies scattered in various rooms.

The trial relied purely on evidence such as traces of blood, fibers and smoke, as there were no independent witnesses to the shootings.

The court had to examine more than 3,000 pieces of evidence, a process which took more than 100 days in court.

A robbery gone wrong

The brutal killings shocked Germany and fueled speculation that the murders were related to organised crime.

Media reports speculated the incident had been some kind of reprisal attack by ethnic Vietnamese gangs that smuggle eastern European cigarettes into Germany.

But investigators later ruled out a mafia element in the killings, saying the bloody crime was the result of a robbery gone wrong.

Prosecutors said the killings were meant to cover the trail of thieves making off with 5,000 euros in cash, two laptops and a few mobile phones.

The two Vietnamese brothers, identified in the German media as Van Hiep V and Trong D.C., were stopped by police on a country road during a routine check some 13 hours after the crime.

Police searched the car after the duo failed to produce identification and came across a piece of paper with a sketch of the Chinese restaurant where the killings occurred.

An estimated 80,000 Chinese nationals live in Germany, with the largest communities located in Hamburg and Berlin.