16 ott 2002

  China-Execution 

BEIJING -  A Chinese insurance company employee  has been executed for embezzling 4.17 million yuan (US$504,000) in insurance  premiums, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

   Deng Chenhui was put to death Tuesday in the eastern port city of Tianjin   after China's Supreme Court upheld a sentence issued by the city's No. 2

  Intermediate People's Court, Xinhua said.

   The report, filed late Tuesday, said the court refused to identify the name   of the insurance company that Deng worked for. Only 2.47 million yuan   (US$300,000) of the embezzled funds have been recovered by police, Xinhua said.

   Phone calls to numbers at the court rang unanswered Wednesday morning.

   China frequently gives harsh penalties to people convicted of economic   crimes in an attempt to enforce order over what it calls its <socialist market economy,> a somewhat chaotic hybrid of free-for-all capitalism and  authoritarian state planning