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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, September 30, 2002

China Sentences Rat Poison Killer to Death

China sentenced a man to death on Monday for spiking a business rival's breakfast snacks with rat poison, killing at least 38 people and making hundreds sick.


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China sentenced a man to death on Monday for spiking a business rival's breakfast snacks with rat poison, killing at least 38 people and making hundreds sick.

A court in the eastern city of Nanjing found Chen Zhengping guilty of poisoning snacks at the Heshengyuan Soy Milk chain store in the nearby town of Tangshan this month.

Tangshan residents have described seeing customers at the tiny restaurant collapse, some bleeding from the mouth and ears, after eating fried dough sticks, sesame cakes and sticky rice balls there on the morning of September 14.

Chen confessed to the crime after police seized him the next day in the central city of Zhengzhou, hundreds of miles (kilometres) from Tangshan.

He told police he was driven by hatred of Heshengyuan's owner, they said, while giving no further details. It is reported that he was a cousin of the restaurant owner and had opened a rival but less successful business in Tangshan.

Food poisoning deaths have sometimes occurred in China at restaurants using cheaper industrial salts instead of edible, supermarket salt. Some cases involved sabotage.

Police detained two disgruntled owners of a noodle factory last year for lacing their product with rat poison which put at least 89 restaurant patrons in hospital.

Food poisoning in China killed 146 people and made more than 15,000 sick last year. Many of these incidents were due to rat poison, other chemicals and bacteria.


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