China sentences South Korean man to death

A Chinese court handed down the death penalty to a 53-year-old South Korean man convicted of trafficking 26 pounds of methamphetamine. The man, known as Jang, had two accomplices who received suspended death penalties by the court in Qingdao, a report by The Korea Herald newspaper said. The court also sentenced another two accomplices in the same trial. One received a life sentence and the other a 15-year jail term, the Herald report said whose sources were unnamed South Korean Foreign Ministry officials. Jang and his four accomplices have lodged an appeal. Chinese authorities have arrested and charged more than 100 Koreans with drugs offenses, many involving methamphetamines. The drug is often mentioned by the trade name Philopon in Asia as well as slang terms including ice, meth, crank, crystal meth and sometime speed, although speed more often refers to a type of amphetamine slightly different in chemical composition to methamphetamine. Jang is the third Korean to receive the death penalty in China, all for drug crimes, the Herald said. One was executed in 2001 and the other has had his death sentence suspended. Qingdao -- commonly known as Tsingtao in the West -- is a city of more than 8 million people and home to China's North Sea fleet on the Yellow Sea coast, opposite the Korean Peninsula. Qingdao also is connected to South Korea by ferry routes. Earlier this month China's national police chief Meng Jianzhu said he would intensify the war on drugs and paid tribute to the country's anti-drug police officers who have died while pursuing drugs criminals. The problem is particularly serious in the southwestern province of Yunnan where police set up a 1,000-strong anti-drug team in 1982, China's Xinhua news agency said. Meng said members of the Yunnan force should be examples for police forces nationwide. Police in Yunnan arrested 10 suspected drug smugglers and confiscated around 80 pounds of drugs in three separate cases in April. In one incident, police flagged down a motorcycle suspected of carrying drugs and found around 25 pounds of heroin in a cardboard box under the driver's seat, Xinhua reported. Police suspect a Myanmar connection with the motorcycle arrest. Kunming, the largest city in Yunnan, lies on the transportation route for heroin produced in the infamous poppy growing region known as the Golden Triangle where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet. In December, police near Kunming and they had arrested a Myanmar woman who had travelled across the border. They found she was carrying nearly 15 pounds of heroin in a bamboo basket. She told police that a man in Myanmar has said Chinese people would give her around $135 if she were to deliver the heroin to them in Yunnan, the Kunming report said.