China sentenced a man to death today for spiking a rival's breakfast snacks with rat poison and killing at least 38 people and making hundreds sick, the China News Service said.
A court in the eastern city of Nanjing found Chen Zhengping guilty of poisoning snacks at the Heshengyuan Soy Milk chain store in the nearby town of Tangshan this month, the news agency said.
Tangshan residents have described seeing customers at the tiny restaurant collapse, some bleeding from the mouth and ears, after eating fried dough sticks, sesame cakes and sticky rice balls there on the morning of September 14th.
State media have said Chen confessed to the crime after police seized him the next day in the central city of Zhengzhou, hundreds of miles from Tangshan.
He told police he was driven by hatred of Heshengyuan's owner, they said.