Xinhuanet

CHINA: Falungong cult murderer sentenced to death

A Falungong cult follower who poisoned and killed 15 innocent people was given death penalty by a court in east China's Zhejiang province Tuesday afternoon.

Chen Fuzhao, an assistant clinician in a small hospital in Cangnan county, was found to have poisoned 15 vagrant beggars and trash pickers by giving them beverages mixed with rat poison from May 25 to June 27, 2003.

In the 1st instance judgment issued by the municipal intermediate people's court of Wenzhou, to which Cangnan county belongs, he was also found guilty of putting poison into a thermosflask containing boiled water in the kitchen of a Buddhist temple. A female worshipper drank the water, fell to ground and died.

Chen admitted the charges of poisoning the 16 innocent people to death in the trial.

According to the court verdict, Chen had started to practice Falungong cult in 1996. Under the mental control of the so-called Falungong "master" Li Hongzhi, he gradually came up with the idea of "upgrading" himself and raising his own power by massacring others with beggars and trash pickers as the target of his assaults.

Many locals watched the trial and heard the verdict.