China Executes Former Drug Regulator
BEIJING, July 10 — China executed its former top food and drug regulator today for taking bribes to approve untested medicine as Beijing scrambled to show that it is serious about improving the safety of Chinese products.
The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court carried out the death sentence against Zheng Xiaoyu, 62, the former head of the State Food and Drug Administration, soon after the country’s Supreme Court rejected his final appeal.
Mr. Zheng, who had appealed his May 29 sentence on the grounds that it was too severe and that he had confessed to the bribery charges against him, became the first ministerial-level official put to death since 2000 and only the fourth since China opened it doors to the outside world nearly 30 years ago.
The official Xinhua news agency announced the execution but did not say how Mr. Zheng was killed. In most cases, court police execute prisoners by shooting them in the back of the head, though recently police have also used lethal injections.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24801728/Screenshot_2023_07_21_at_1.45.12_PM.jpeg)
