Girl writes to court pleading for father's life

Two years ago her father brutally killed her mother. Now the 10-year-old girl is asking the country's highest court to spare her dad's life in a case that has split the girl's family and divided public opinion across the country.

"I have lost my mother and I cannot afford to lose my father. I don't want to become an orphan," the girl, know as Jin Jin, wrote in her letter to the Supreme People's Court (SPC) on March 9, the Beijing Morning Post reported yesterday.

The girl's father, 36-year-old Wang Junbao from Xuchang city of Central China's Henan province, was sentenced to death in Dec 2007 by Xuchang municipal intermediate people's court after he hammered his 31-year-old wife Feng Li to death on March 12, 2007.