Hmong immigrant receives life in prison

A Hmong immigrant convicted of murdering six deer hunters and attempting to kill two others after a trespassing dispute was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday with no chance for parole.

Judge Norman Yackel ordered Chai Soua Vang, 37, to serve six life prison terms, one after the other, guaranteeing he would never be freed from prison. Wisconsin does not have a death penalty.

Vang, 37, of St. Paul, Minnesota, was found guilty last month at his trial in Sawyer County Circuit Court on six counts of first-degree intentional homicide and three counts of attempted homicide.

Vang contended he fired in self-defense after the other hunters who found him trespassing in a tree stand last November used profanity and ethnic slurs against him and fired a shot at him.

Two survivors of the shooting testified that Vang opened fire first, and that he had already shot some of the hunters by the time a single shot was fired at him, AP reports.

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