The U. S. Justice Department said on Friday it intends to seek the death penalty for an Illinois man who was charged last year with kidnapping a visiting Chinese scholar.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U. S. Justice Department said on Friday it intends to seek the death penalty for an Illinois man who was charged last year with kidnapping a visiting Chinese scholar.
Brendt Christensen was indicted in June in connection with the kidnapping of Yingying Zhang, a scholar in photosynthesis and crop productivity who came to the University of Illinois from China last year.
The Justice Department said in a statement that Zhang’s kidnapping resulted in her death, and because of that “a sentence of death is justified.”
Attorneys for Christensen could not immediately be reached for comment.
