AKIPRESS.COM - Two members of a banned Chinese doomsday cult have been put to death for the murder of a woman in a McDonald's restaurant in May 2014, KRCR News reported.

Zhang Fan and Zhang Lidong were executed Monday after their death sentences were approved by the Supreme People's Court. Before their deaths, Zhang and Zhang were allowed to meet with their families for a final time.

They were among five members of the Church of Almighty God, or Quannengshen, tried on murder charges in August 2014 over the killing of a woman in Zhaoyuan, Shandong province.

A court statement said the victim, a 37-year-old woman named Wu Shuoyan, was attacked after refusing to give her phone number to the group, who were allegedly attempting to recruit new members.

Three other cult members, Lyu Yingchun, Zhang Hang and Zhang Qiaolian, were sentenced to life, 10 and seven years in prison respectively for their roles in the attack. The four Zhangs were related.

The Church of Almighty God has been linked to kidnappings, violence and extortion, and has been banned by the China's Ministry of Public Security since 1995.

Also known as Eastern Lightning, the group preaches that the righteous are engaged in an apocalyptic struggle against China's Communist Party – which it refers to as the "great red dragon."

Founded in the 1990s in Henan Province, the group believes that Jesus has been reincarnated as Yang Xiangbin, the wife of the group's founder, Zhao Weishan. The couple live in the United States after fleeing to the country in 2000.