DRUG DEALER SENTENCED TO DEATH IN SHENZHEN

The Intermediate Court of Shenzhen in South China's Guangdong Province on
Tuesday sentenced to death a Hong Kong resident for making and selling huge
quantities of the drug "ice."

Zhuang Chucheng, 40, born in Chaoyang City of Guangdong and now a Hong Kong
resident, was also deprived of his political rights for life and all of his
personal property was confiscated.

Zhuang and Chen Wenyi, who is still at large, planned to manufacture
methamphetamine hydrochloride, known as "ice," in 1995. They recruited Lin
Qitong and Li Xuelan, both engineers at a pharmaceutical factory in
Nanning, capital of southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, to
make "ice" in a laboratory using chemical synthesis.

Lin and Li will be tried in separate cases.

Between August 1996 and July 2000, they rented workshops, bought raw
materials and employed workers to manufacture solid and liquefied "ice" in
Nanning, and also in Huizhou and Dongguan cities in Guangdong.

Zhuang also trained other people with his drug-making technique, and bought
drugs from them for 24,000 HK dollars per kilogram.

Zhuang was arrested in April last year.

The court said that Zhuang was involved in smuggling 513 kilograms of
"ice," and his accomplices, 388 kilograms.