CHINA

Two men who abducted 154 women and two children and made 840,000 yuan from selling them to people in the richer eastern provinces were also executed. Another two men from Chongqing abducted 13 women in 1996 and 1997 and pocketed 24,000 yuan from selling them and were executed. The Supreme People´s Court announced that Lin Liequn, a businessman from Shenzhen, was given the death penalty with a two-year reprieve, for illegally importing and wholesaling industrial lard. The sale led to the poisoning of about 1,000 consumers and the death of other three. Liu Jiangang, one of the nine people who violated traffic laws in Harbin, northeastern Heilongjiang Province, was sentenced to death. Liu ran down a person in 1993, but drove away without confessing to local police or trying to help the person, which resulted in the death of the victim.