- BEIJING (Reuters) - A man
jealous of a business rival has confessed to spiking his competitor's breakfast
snacks with rat poison that killed 38 people and made hundreds sick in
eastern China, state television said Tuesday.
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- Chen Zhengping told police he was driven by hatred of
the owner of a thriving fast food store in Tangshan, a small industrial
town in Jiangsu province, China Central Television (CCTV) said.
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- Tangshan residents were shocked to see customers at the
tiny Heshengyuan Soy Milk chain store collapse, some bleeding from the
mouth and ears, after eating fried dough sticks, sesame cakes and sticky
rice balls there Saturday morning.
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- Police seized Chen Sunday in the central Chinese city
of Zhengzhou, hundreds of miles from Tangshan, state television said.
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- It gave no further details about the man.
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- But Hong Kong's Beijing-backed Wen Wei Po said he was
a cousin of the restaurant owner and had opened a rival but less successful
business in Tangshan, just outside Nanjing city.
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- Chen put poison in the rival eatery's water supply and
noodles hoping to give breakfast-eaters stomach trouble, it said.
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- When he saw people dying, Chen fled and boarded a train
to Henan where he was picked up by police, it said.
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- CONFUSION OVER OFFICIAL VERSION
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- However, there was still some confusion about the official
version of events.
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- A Zhengzhou police official contacted by Reuters confirmed
a man was caught on a train there but said he was only one of several suspects.
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- "We cannot say that he was responsible for the poisoning.
There could be many other suspects, as in an assassination case,"
he said.
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- There was confusion too over CCTV's death toll of 38.
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- A report on the Web site of the official Xinhua news
agency Saturday said 41 had died. It quickly disappeared and subsequent
reports said only that several people were dead.
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- Then Tuesday morning, China Radio International quoted
local officials saying 49 had died.
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- Tangshan residents have said at least 100 were dead.
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- The government has imposed tight media restrictions to
prevent a public outcry and show the government in a good light, Chinese
reporters say.
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- China's cabinet and the Communist Party's Central Committee,
which oversees national policy, sent police and health officials to investigate,
state media said, highlighting concerns about bad publicity ahead of a
leadership transition expected in November.
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- Locals say the media restrictions have only added to
confusion in Tangshan, where rumors spread fast through a population of
a few thousand.
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- A woman who runs a provisions store next to the Heshengyuan
outlet said she had never heard of a family dispute.
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- "What dispute? They've been together for so many
years and are happy, how can there be any dispute?" she said. "I've
never heard of any friction between them and other relatives either."
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- Other storekeepers around the Heshengyuan outlet told
Reuters various tales about the owner -- she was either dead, in hospital,
being questioned by police, or not the real owner.
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- POWERFUL TOXIN
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- The Shanghai Daily said health officials had found a
rat poison called Du Shu Qiang in the tainted snacks.
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- There was no effective antidote for the poison which
was widely available in the countryside despite the ban, it said.
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- The National Poison Control Center said Du Shu Qiang
was made with tetramine, which attacked the nervous system and was banned
in 1991. Symptoms included dizziness, vomiting, seizures, foaming at the
mouth and loss of consciousness or death.
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- Food poisoning deaths have sometimes occurred in China
at restaurants using cheaper industrial salts instead of edible, supermarket
salt.
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- Some cases involved sabotage.
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- 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.
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- 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, state media have said.
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