Three other Vietnamese defendants received jail sentences of varying lengths for aggravated armed robbery and incitement to murder, the court said.

In a massacre that shocked the country, the robbers opened fire at the Lin Yue restaurant in the quiet town of Sittensen in February 2007 after Phong Dao Cao’s mask slipped, revealing his identity.

The owners of the restaurant - Hong Kong Chinese couple Danny Wing Hong Fan, 32, and his 28-year-old wife Annie, who both had British passports - and five Asian employees were found tied up, beaten and shot in the restaurant.

Six of the victims - three men and three women - died at the scene while another man succumbed to his gunshot wounds the next day.

Only the two-year-old daughter of the owners survived the carnage. She was found unharmed, surrounded by the bloody corpses.

Among the victims were a waitress of Malaysian origin, a Thai man, a 57- year-old chef from Hong Kong and two Vietnamese who worked in the restaurant - a 38-year-old waitress and a 32-year-old kitchen hand.

The grisly scene was discovered by the husband of one of the waitresses when he went to pick up his wife after her shift in the early hours of February 5, only to find her body lying in the blood-splattered room.

The trial, which began in August 2007, was delayed first by defense lawyer claims that the defendants had not understood their Vietnamese interpreters, then by one of the judges falling seriously ill, necessitating a new trial.

In a dramatic twist last week, the five men changed their plea to guilty.

One defendant - 33-year-old Van Hiep Vu - was sentenced to 14 years in jail for aggravated robbery and incitement to murder.

Another, Quoc Thanh Nguyen, a former employee who provided vital inside information for the crime, received a five-year sentence.

The third man, Van Phuong Vu, who is thought to have driven the getaway car, got four years and nine months.

Source: AFP