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Two arrested for S. China food poisoning deaths

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-07-18 23:01

HAIKOU  -- Two people were arrested in connection with a mass poisoning that killed three restaurant employees in south China's Hainan Province, police said on Friday.

Huang Yuchen and Wu Shushun, two local men who worked in the cake business, admitted to stealthily putting rat poison into an electric rice cooker for the staff of a rival restaurant in Haikou, the provincial capital, on June 28, said Liu Shaodong, Haikou Public Security Bureau spokesman.

Twelve workers at Fuxia restaurant were poisoned after they ate the rice laced with the poison. Three later died in hospital, while nine others were discharged.

Huang and Wu said the rival business attracted many of their customers and thus caused a sharp fall in their revenue, which made them seek revenge, according to Liu.

They could face the crime of intentional poisoning, or most severely, the death penalty.