China detains 18 members of ‘cult' which believes Jesus was reincarnated as a woman

Police in China have detained 18 members of a banned religious cult, state media said, after a father and daughter connected to the group were executed two years ago for murder.

The ‘suspects’ were involved with the Church of Almighty God, who attracted global headlines in 2014 when five of its members beat a woman to death at a McDonald's after she apparently refused to hand over her mobile phone number.

Followers of the group – which is known as Quannengshen in Chinese - believe that Jesus has been reincarnated as a Chinese woman, the wife of the cult's founder.

The organisation appeared in the 1990s and the founder and his wife fled to the United States in 2000, state media said.

Dong Jianfeng, a police officer from Changxing County, in the eastern Zhejiang province, said some of the 18 people who were detained were depressed and had experienced the breakdown of relationships.

"The cult's 'leaders' imposed spiritual control over the members," Mr Dong said, according to Xinhua news agency. "They were told that as long as they gave donations, the Almighty God would keep their illness at bay."

China has cracked down harshly on religious groups, most notably on the Falungong movement which was banned in the late 1990s.

Nearly 1,000 suspected members of the Church of Almighty God were arrested following the McDonald’s murder in the eastern Shandong province, state media said.

Five people were convicted for the murder, including Zhang Lidong and his daughter Zhang Fan, who were both executed.

The Telegraph could not reach the group for comment over the recent arrests, however members who are based overseas have previously claimed that it is persecuted by Beijing.

The group has denounced the ruling Communist Party as the “great red dragon”.