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By
Chen Hong ( Source of Article: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-01/07/content_7373442.htm SHENZHEN: A man was
sentenced to death on Monday and three others were punished for their
involvement in a food poisoning incident last year that killed two people and
put 63 others in hospital in the city in February, local media reported
yesterday. Ke Bizhi was sentenced to death
at the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court, while his associate Zhang Zhenhua was given a 15-year jail term as he provided
police with information that led to Ke's arrest,
the Southern Metropolis Daily reported. Wang Yingde, who worked for Ke, was
given the death sentence with a two-year reprieve, while the scheme's
mastermind Zhu Yuanlin got life imprisonment. Ke, Wang and Zhu have filed appeals to the high court. According to
prosecutors, Zhu had invested in a market and wanted to eradicate his
competition. On Feb 20, he
reached a deal with Zhang to poison customers at restaurants in a rival
market. In return, Zhang
was given a 500,000-yuan ($73,100) waiver on his rent on a skating rink
within Zhu's market. Zhang sent Ke, his partner in the rink, to buy sodium nitrite, a
toxic chemical, and Wang, at Ke's request, sneaked
into two restaurants on Feb 23 and "threw the chemical around". Sixty-five people,
mostly employees of a local factory, were poisoned while eating at the
restaurants. A 21-year-old man and an 18-year-old woman died. Police detected
sodium nitrite in the water collected from the restaurants' drains and on
napkins. The chemical was
also found on the kitchen ranges. Based on the
evidence, police suspected some of food could have been contaminated by
sodium nitrite. Zhang, Ke and Wang pleaded guilty to the crime, but said they
did not know sodium nitrite was toxic. "I thought the
chemical would just give people diarrhea," Zhang told the court. And Wang said he
"just followed his boss's instructions", without knowing what he
was throwing in the restaurants. (China Daily 01/07/2009 page4 |
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