(LIU XUEBIN)

Six appellants convicted of murdering 13 Chinese sailors on the Mekong River in 2011 hear their verdict at a court in Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan Province on December 26, 2012.

The Provincial Higher People's Court of Yunnan on December 26 rejected appeals from the six people convicted of intentional homicide, drug trafficking, kidnapping and hijacking by a local court in Kunming last November.

The court upheld death penalties for the case's prime convicts Naw Kham, a Myanmar drug lord, and three of his top-ranked men. The court also sustained sentences for the two other Myanmar convicts. Known by their Chinese names, Zha Bo and Zha Tuobo were handed a death sentence with two-year reprieve and eight years in prison, respectively.