Tainted milk revenge killer sentenced to death
Source: Agencies/Shanghai Daily |
December 10, 2011, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
A court in northwest China sentenced a woman to death and jailed her husband for life for lacing milk with nitrite that killed three children and left 36 ill.
Ma Xiuling and her husband Wu Guangquan, dairy farmers from Pingliang City, Gansu Province, were found to have deliberately added nitrite - an industrial salt - to fresh milk produced by business rivals in early April, Xinhua news agency said, citing a spokesman for the Pingliang Municipal Intermediate People's Court.
Ma and Wu committed the act as revenge against their rivals, another couple, in the wake of several business disputes, the spokesman added.
The three children who died after consuming the tainted milk were under two years old.
The couple decided on their plan after they quarreled over trivial matters with their rivals, a couple who renting the same cow pen.
On April 5, Wu bought 300 grams of nitrite and Ma put some of it into the rivals' milk in a pail. The next day she put more of the industrial salt into the pail. Three children died after drinking the contaminated milk and 36 others were hospitalized.
The Xinhua report said the couple are appealing against the verdict.
This ruling comes just days after police in the northeastern Jilin Province said they believed a child who died after drinking a milk drink of Coca-Cola was probably the victim of deliberate poisoning.
Food scandals are common in China, where crackdowns have failed to stamp out poisonings and toxin outbreaks that have shaken consumer confidence.
The fast-growing but fragmented dairy sector has been at the heart of many worries.
In 2008, at least six children died and nearly 300,000 became ill from powdered milk laced with melamine, an industrial chemical added to low quality or diluted milk to fool inspectors by giving misleadingly high readings for protein levels.
Ma Xiuling and her husband Wu Guangquan, dairy farmers from Pingliang City, Gansu Province, were found to have deliberately added nitrite - an industrial salt - to fresh milk produced by business rivals in early April, Xinhua news agency said, citing a spokesman for the Pingliang Municipal Intermediate People's Court.
Ma and Wu committed the act as revenge against their rivals, another couple, in the wake of several business disputes, the spokesman added.
The three children who died after consuming the tainted milk were under two years old.
The couple decided on their plan after they quarreled over trivial matters with their rivals, a couple who renting the same cow pen.
On April 5, Wu bought 300 grams of nitrite and Ma put some of it into the rivals' milk in a pail. The next day she put more of the industrial salt into the pail. Three children died after drinking the contaminated milk and 36 others were hospitalized.
The Xinhua report said the couple are appealing against the verdict.
This ruling comes just days after police in the northeastern Jilin Province said they believed a child who died after drinking a milk drink of Coca-Cola was probably the victim of deliberate poisoning.
Food scandals are common in China, where crackdowns have failed to stamp out poisonings and toxin outbreaks that have shaken consumer confidence.
The fast-growing but fragmented dairy sector has been at the heart of many worries.
In 2008, at least six children died and nearly 300,000 became ill from powdered milk laced with melamine, an industrial chemical added to low quality or diluted milk to fool inspectors by giving misleadingly high readings for protein levels.
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