Chinese woman given lenient sentence after killing husband who spent years in a coma

A 63-year-old woman from Beijing has been given a suspended prison sentence for killing her husband who had been in a coma for five years, a newspaper reported.

The woman, whose full name was not given, strangled her husband in March last year, the Beijing Morning Post said.

She then tried to kill herself by cutting her wrists, but failed.

She had been looking after her husband for 10 years since the man became paralysed with a brain disorder. He fell into a coma about five years ago.

She refused to send him to a care centre for the elderly, which was free of charge, fearing he would not receive proper treatment.

But as the years went by she said she could no longer take care of him as she was diagnosed with high blood pressure and heart disease, the report said.