Some 17 drug traffickers were executed in China's southwestern...

Some 17 drug traffickers were executed in China's southwestern Chongqing and eastern Shanghai municipalities to mark International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. The Chongqing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court sentenced 16 criminals to death on charges of drug trafficking in a public trial. Since 2003 the municipal public security department had cracked down on 30 heroin-smuggling cases, arresting 5,450 suspects and seizing a total of 135.5 kilograms of heroin. In Shanghai, 78 people convicted of drug-related crimes were punished. Among them was Lin Shengfu, a native of Haikou City, capital of south China's Hainan province, who was executed for smuggling some 1.8 kilograms of heroin from Myanmar in the May 2003. China executed at least 18 people on June 25, 12 of them for drug trafficking and six for murder, state media reported.